- Author: Kara Manke
Reposted from UC Berkeley News
Spotted owls, native to the old-growth forests of the West Coast, have already lost much of their former habitat to logging. Without active forest management, the birds now risk losing even more of their remaining habitat to wildfire, a new paper argues. (Photo by Tom Munton)
Spotted owl populations are in decline all along the West...
- Author: jeannette warnert
Reposted from the UCANR news
Historically, fire fighting was a male-dominated field. With broader diversity needed, women are seizing the opportunity, reported The Nature Conservancy.
TNC ran a feature on its website about a prescribed fire on its Disney Wildness Preserve in Florida staffed and managed by an all-women crew.
"Everybody was here to work, and communication went well," said Jana Mott, the day's burn boss and TNC's northern Florida...
- Author: Susie Kocher
- Author: Rob York
- Author: Lenya Quinn-Davidson
Resposted from the UCANR Green Blog
The humble rake has been in the spotlight in recent weeks, and its role as a forest management tool ridiculed and scorned. However, most fire professionals believe rakes are a necessary part of saving California's forests.
Those who are familiar with fire are undoubtedly familiar with the McLeod, which is a standard...
- Author: Jeannette Warnert
Reposted from the UCANR Green Blog
For millennia, fires periodically burned through California forests, thinning trees, reducing shrubbery and clearing out downed branches and debris. Without periodic fire, the forests became more dense, with spaces between large trees filling in with a thick carpet of duff, seedlings and shrubs.
As a result, today's forests are prone to more intense and damaging fires, like the Rim Fire, King Fire, and — most recently — the Camp Fire in Butte County. These fires are burning with unprecedented severity and speed, threatening large swaths of forest, towns, and even urban...