Wildland fires
WEATHER PATTERNS AND WILDFIRE HAZARDS
Max Moritz
Assistant cooperative extension specialist in wildland fire at the College of Natural Resources and co-director of the UC Center for Fire Research & Outreach
Office: (510) 642-7329
E-mail: mmoritz@nature.berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Sarah Yang, (510) 643-7741, scyang@berkeley.edu
Note: Moritz is frequently out in the field and may not be able to respond promptly to media inquiries.
Expertise: Fire modeling, fire effects, brushland fire ecosystems and spatial patterns of fire disturbance. He uses quantitative analyses of fire history, examining the relative importance of different mechanisms that drive fire patterns on the landscape. He is interested in simulation of fire dynamics, using spatially-explicit models of fire spread and vegetation regrowth. Moritz recently co-authored a paper examining the impact of plant moisture levels on fire history in the Santa Monica Mountains. Based upon their findings, he and other researchers developed a way to predict the start and duration of the area's fire season. "Spring precipitation dictates when the fire season starts and therefore how long and severe it might be," Moritz says. "The Santa Ana winds are still by far the most important driver, however."
WILDFIRE ECOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR
Scott L. Stephens
Associate professor of fire science in the Department of Science, Policy & Management at the College of Natural Resources and co-director of the UC Center for Fire Research & Outreach
E-mail: stephens@nature.berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Sarah Yang, (510) 643-7741, scyang@berkeley.edu
Expertise: Prescribed fire, fire history, fire in the urban-wildland interface, fire behavior, effects of fuels treatments used to reduce fire hazards, fire policy and the impact of changing climates on wildfire. Stephens runs the Fire Science Laboratory at UC Berkeley and co-directs the UC Center for Fire Research & Outreach. Researchers at the Fire Science Lab examine the history of fire in California forestlands and a wide variety of fire-related topics, such as the role of fire in forest and shrubland restoration, the effect of fire on forest wildlife and insects, fire climate interactions in the forests of Southern California, and how climate and fire interact in a never-logged forest ecosystem with no fire suppression.
WILDFIRE PREVENTION POLICY
William Stewart
UC Cooperative Extension specialist
Office: (510) 643-3130
Cell: (510) 318-0377
E-mail: stewart@nature.berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Sarah Yang, (510) 643-7741, scyang@berkeley.edu
Expertise: Forest management, resource economics, and watershed management. Stewart has extensive experience with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and was in charge of the agency's research program on fires and forestry. He can talk about the economics of fire prevention and fire suppression programs. He notes that even though regulations are in place regarding defensible space around homes, there is limited enforcement of those rules. He is also examining the environmental damage from wildfires in addition to property destruction.
PROTECTING HOMES/BUILDINGS FROM WILDFIRE
Steve Quarles
UC Cooperative Extension advisor
Office: (510) 665-3580
E-mail: steve.quarles@nature.berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Sarah Yang, (510) 643-7741, scyang@berkeley.edu
Expertise: Performance and durability of common exterior building materials and wood-frame housing when subjected to wildfire. Quarles is responsible for developing and implementing outreach and applied research programs on the performance of wood and wood-based products and wood-framed structures, and conducts workshops for homeowners on how to reduce their fire risk. He also coordinates and teaches classes related to building construction in wildfire prone areas for California's Office of the State Fire Marshal. He oversees a demonstration home in Richmond that shows various building materials, design features and landscape vegetation that can minimize fire danger.
Quarles says that protecting homes from wildfire is best achieved by combining vegetation management techniques around the house with an understanding of ignition-resistant construction materials and design. "It is important to remember that the construction materials used in homes act as a system, and we should understand performance implications associated with changes in materials and design," he says. "For example, eliminating soffit vents may be good for preventing entry of fire and embers into the attic, but may result in moisture-related problems long before a wildfire occurs."
Gary Nakamura
UC Cooperative Extension specialist in forestry at the College of Natural Resources
Office: (530) 224-4902 (based in Redding, Calif.)
E-mail: nakamura@nature.berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Sarah Yang, (510) 643-7741, scyang@berkeley.edu
Expertise: Nakamura gives fire prevention workshops for homeowners and co-authored a booklet, "Recovering From Wildfire: A Guide for California's Forest Landowners." The booklet discusses how to protect soils from erosion, where to go for financial help and what the tax implications are from fire losses. He has also co-authored articles about reducing wildfire risk through forestry management and home landscaping. Nakamura can talk about prescribed burning, biomass harvesting and other methods of treating forest fuels to reduce fire hazard. He works with community-based groups, fire safe councils, and resource conservation districts to help them understand fire issues and the role and impacts of biomass harvesting on fuels and fire. "There is not enough funding or political will to implement and maintain fire-safe programs without the involvement of communities-at-risk," he says. "They must see themselves as part of the long-term solution to the fuels and wildfire problem, not as mere recipients of government programs."
J. Keith Gilless
Dean of the College of Natural Resources with joint appointments in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and the Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management
Office: (510) 642-7171
E-mail: gilless@nature.berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Sarah Yang, (510) 643-7741, scyang@berkeley.edu
Expertise: Forest economics and management, wildland fire protection planning. Gilless has conducted research on structural survival in large urban-wildland fires, including the Oakland-Berkeley hills fire of 1991 and the 2007 Southern California firestorm His work evaluated the probability of a house within the fire perimeter surviving as a function of the house's structural characteristics, its surrounding vegetation, and the defensive actions taken to protect it. The results of these studies highlighted the importance of nonflammable roofs and vegetation management programs to reduce fire losses in interface areas. He has also worked on computer simulation models that assist fire agencies in the evaluation of dispatching policies and stationing strategies for firefighting resources. These models have been used by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and other fire agencies to analyze their wildland fire protection plans, and by Gilless and his colleagues to assess the likely impacts of climate change on fire protection in California.
MONITORING WILDFIRES
Faith Kearns
Associate director of the UC Center for Fire Research & Outreach
Office: (510) 643-0409
E-mail: fkearns@nature.berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Sarah Yang, (510) 643-7741, scyang@berkeley.edu
Expertise: Wildland-urban interface, watershed management, geographic information systems (GIS) and webGIS, outreach and communications. Kearns manages the administrative functions of the fire center, participates in research and leads outreach activities. She led the development of the Fire Research & Outreach Center's Fire Information Engine Toolkit and has recently published research on collaborative tools for resource management and the use of spatial analysis in wildland-urban interface management. She works with UC Berkeley faculty to create science-based tools for a variety of audiences and is currently working on Web-based, collaborative approaches to monitoring active fires.
Maggi Kelly
UC Cooperative Extension specialist at the College of Natural Resources
Office: (510) 642-7272
E-mail: mkelly@nature.berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Sarah Yang, (510) 643-7741, scyang@berkeley.edu
Expertise: Geohydrolic information systems (GIS) and landscape change. Kelly's research program is positioned to provide statewide tracking of resource changes related to fire, and to provide the data and expertise to model potential landscape level ecosystem responses to changing fire and climate regimes.
REDUCING WILDFIRE FUELS AND USING BIOMASS
John Shelly
UC Cooperative Extension advisor
Office: (510) 215-4210
E-mail: john.shelly@nature.berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Sarah Yang, (510) 643-7741, scyang@berkeley.edu
Expertise: Forest products, wood manufacturing methods, biomass utilization, physical properties of wood. "Trees, shrubs and other vegetation can accumulate to unacceptably high levels in coniferous forests, oak woodland, rangeland and even in urban forests," Shelly says. "This material can create high fire risk, endanger ecosystem health and threaten forest productivity. Finding uses for this biomass can help offset the cost of managing wildfire fuels and lower the risk of catastrophic fires." Shelly manages a program in UC Cooperative Extension that is helping individuals, businesses and communities find new ways to utilize woody biomass. Current projects are focused on small-diameter trees, forest thinnings, underutilized hardwoods and urban trees.
IMPACT ON WILDLIFE
Tom Scott
UC Berkeley Cooperative Extension specialist and a member of the Integrated Hardwood Range Management Program based at UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources
Office: (951) 827-5115 (office located at UC Riverside)
E-mail: thomas.scott@ucr.edu
Expertise: Conservation of wildlife, wildlife management at the urban-wildland interface, and response of wildlife to human disturbances. After the state's catastrophic 1993 fire season, Scott was instrumental in developing subsequent meetings and a booklet on fire ecology, management and policy. He authored "Brushfires in California: Ecology and Resource Management" with Jon Keeley.
INSECT INFESTATION AND FIRE
David Wood
Professor emeritus of insect biology in the Department of Science, Policy & Management at the College of Natural Resources
Office: (510) 642-5538
Cell: (925) 998-8792
E-mail: bigwood@nature.berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Sarah Yang, (510) 643-7741 scyang@berkeley.edu
Expertise: Wood studies insect and pathogen activity. He has studied the bark beetle infestation of pine forests in Southern California and Arizona. Bark beetles have killed off millions of trees in the region, leading to acres of dead trees and foliage that have provided fuel for some of the wildfires. The beetle infestation has further exacerbated the stress in the forests caused by one of the most severe droughts this past century. Wood has worked on bark beetle biology and ecology for 50 years and has published extensively on the subject. In collaboration with UC Berkeley's Scott Stephens as part of the National Fire Surrogate Research Program, Wood is investigating the interactions of insects and diseases with treatment aimed at reducing both thinning and under story tree density and wood on the ground, which often fuel wildfires. He has also served as a consultant with PG&E on bark beetle tree interactions along powerlines and has been an expert witness in four fires caused by fallen trees in the past 10 years.
IMPACT ON ECOSYSTEMS
Doug McCreary
UC Cooperative Extension natural resources specialist in the College of Natural Resources and manager of UC's Integrated Hardwood Range Management Program
Office: (530) 639-8807 (based at the UC Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center in Browns Valley, Calif.)
E-mail: mccreary@nature.berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Sarah Yang, (510) 643-7741, scyang@berkeley.edu
Expertise: Oak regeneration, woodland management and agroforestry. McCreary has examined the effects of wildfires on oak trees, including how different-sized trees are affected by low-intensity fires and the effects of fire on acorn production. He has also examined the effects of prescribed fires on oaks and identified steps that can be taken to protect trees from severe damage in areas where prescribed burning is used to reduce fuel loads and noxious weeds. Oaks, in general, have evolved with fire in California and are well adapted to survive fire's effects, McCreary says. The trees can sprout back from their stumps, even when the part of the tree that is above ground is dead. Several years ago, McCreary helped produce a paper, "Fire in California's Oak Woodlands," that can be downloaded from the Integrated Hardwood Range Management Program website.
The University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources also keeps a list of wildfire experts in the UC system.