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Fire in California
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Fire in California

A special issue of Fire (ISSN 2571-6255).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2024 | Viewed by 19947

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Charles Jones

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Geography and Earth Research Institute (ERI), University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Interests: precipitation variability; extreme events; weather forecasts; predictability studies; regional modeling; monsoon systems; climate change and wildfires in California
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

California experiences substantial numbers of wildfires every year with tremendous loss of life, property, air quality degradation, ecosystems perturbations and economic impacts. Climate change associated with anthropogenic greenhouse emissions and historic forest management practices have aggravated the problem of wildfires in California. This special issue of Fire in California in the MDPI Fire Journal welcomes submissions of papers addressing all aspects of wildfires in California. In particular, we encourage submissions dealing with extreme fire-weather behavior, forest vegetation management, uncoupled and coupled fire behavior models, remote sensing techniques and applications, fires at the wildland urban interface, smoke dispersion, air-quality and health impacts, fire ignition sources, paleoecology applications to wildfires, fire effects on vegetation, soils and hydrology, wildfire evacuation modeling, fire safety and wildfire policies in California.

Dr. Charles Jones
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fire is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • California
  • wildfires
  • climate change
  • vegetation management
  • wildland urban interface
  • fire spread models
  • coupled atmosphere-fire models

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 5818 KiB  
Article
Summer and Fall Extreme Fire Weather Projected to Occur More Often and Affect a Growing Portion of California throughout the 21st Century
by David E. Rother, Fernando De Sales, Doug Stow and Joseph P. McFadden
Fire 2022, 5(6), 177; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire5060177 - 27 Oct 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1965
Abstract
Annual burned area has increased in California over the past three decades as a result of rising temperatures and a greater atmospheric demand for moisture, a trend that is projected to continue throughout the 21st century as a result of climate change. Here, [...] Read more.
Annual burned area has increased in California over the past three decades as a result of rising temperatures and a greater atmospheric demand for moisture, a trend that is projected to continue throughout the 21st century as a result of climate change. Here, we implement a bias-correction and statistical downscaling technique to obtain high resolution, daily meteorological conditions for input into two fire weather indices: vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and the Canadian Fire Weather Index System (FWI). We focus our analysis on 10 ecoregions that together account for the diverse range of climates, ecosystems, topographies, and vegetation types found across the state of California. Our results provide evidence that fire weather conditions will become more extreme and extend into the spring and fall seasons in most areas of California by 2100, extending the amount of time vegetation is exposed to increased atmospheric demand for moisture, and heightening the overall risk for the ignition and spread of large wildfire. The ecoregion-level spatial scale adopted for this study increases the spatial specificity of fire weather information, as well as the resolution with which fire and land managers can implement strategies and counter-measures when addressing issues related to climate change. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fire in California)
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22 pages, 8428 KiB  
Article
Wildfire Risk in the Complex Terrain of the Santa Barbara Wildland–Urban Interface during Extreme Winds
by Katelyn Zigner, Leila M. V. Carvalho, Charles Jones, John Benoit, Gert-Jan Duine, Dar Roberts, Francis Fujioka, Max Moritz, Nic Elmquist and Rob Hazard
Fire 2022, 5(5), 138; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire5050138 - 18 Sep 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2244
Abstract
Each year, wildfires ravage the western U.S. and change the lives of millions of inhabitants. Situated in southern California, coastal Santa Barbara has witnessed devastating wildfires in the past decade, with nearly all ignitions started by humans. Therefore, estimating the risk imposed by [...] Read more.
Each year, wildfires ravage the western U.S. and change the lives of millions of inhabitants. Situated in southern California, coastal Santa Barbara has witnessed devastating wildfires in the past decade, with nearly all ignitions started by humans. Therefore, estimating the risk imposed by unplanned ignitions in this fire-prone region will further increase resilience toward wildfires. Currently, a fire-risk map does not exist in this region. The main objective of this study is to provide a spatial analysis of regions at high risk of fast wildfire spread, particularly in the first two hours, considering varying scenarios of ignition locations and atmospheric conditions. To achieve this goal, multiple wildfire simulations were conducted using the FARSITE fire spread model with three ignition modeling methods and three wind scenarios. The first ignition method considers ignitions randomly distributed in 500 m buffers around previously observed ignition sites. Since these ignitions are mainly clustered around roads and trails, the second method considers a 50 m buffer around this built infrastructure, with ignition points randomly sampled from within this buffer. The third method assumes a Euclidean distance decay of ignition probability around roads and trails up to 1000 m, where the probability of selection linearly decreases further from the transportation paths. The ignition modeling methods were then employed in wildfire simulations with varying wind scenarios representing the climatological wind pattern and strong, downslope wind events. A large number of modeled ignitions were located near the major-exit highway running north–south (HWY 154), resulting in more simulated wildfires burning in that region. This could impact evacuation route planning and resource allocation under climatological wind conditions. The simulated fire areas were smaller, and the wildfires did not spread far from the ignition locations. In contrast, wildfires ignited during strong, northerly winds quickly spread into the wildland–urban interface (WUI) toward suburban and urban areas. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fire in California)
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17 pages, 2461 KiB  
Article
What Makes Wildfires Destructive in California?
by Alexandra D. Syphard, Jon E. Keeley, Mike Gough, Mitchell Lazarz and John Rogan
Fire 2022, 5(5), 133; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire5050133 - 31 Aug 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3485
Abstract
As human impacts from wildfires mount, there is a pressing need to understand why structures are lost in destructive fires. Despite growing research on factors contributing to structure loss, fewer studies have focused on why some fires are destructive and others are not. [...] Read more.
As human impacts from wildfires mount, there is a pressing need to understand why structures are lost in destructive fires. Despite growing research on factors contributing to structure loss, fewer studies have focused on why some fires are destructive and others are not. We characterized overall differences between fires that resulted in structure loss (“destructive fires”) and those that did not (“non-destructive wildfires”) across three California regions. Then, we performed statistical analyses on large fires only (≥100 ha) to distinguish the primary differences between large destructive large fires and large non-destructive fires. Overall, destructive fires were at least an order of magnitude larger than non-destructive fires, with the largest area burned varying by season in different regions. Fire severity was also significantly higher in destructive than non-destructive fires. The statistical analysis showed that, in the San Francisco Bay Area and the northern Sierra Nevada foothills, proximity to the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) was by far the most important factor differentiating destructive and non-destructive wildfires, followed by different combinations of short-term weather, seasonal climate, topography, and vegetation productivity. In Southern California, wind velocity on the day of the fire ignition was the top factor, which is consistent with previous assumptions that wind-driven fires tend to be most destructive and most of the destruction occurs within the first 24 h. Additionally, Southern California’s high population density increases the odds that a human-caused wildfire may occur during a severe fire-weather event. The geographical differences among regions and the variation of factors explaining the differences between large destructive and large non-destructive fires reflects the complexity inherent in decision-making for reducing wildfire risk. Land use planning to reduce future exposure of housing development to fire and increased focus on wildfire ignition prevention emerge as two approaches with substantial potential. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fire in California)
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18 pages, 10650 KiB  
Article
Simulating Potential Impacts of Fuel Treatments on Fire Behavior and Evacuation Time of the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California
by Daisuke Seto, Charles Jones, Anna T. Trugman, Kevin Varga, Andrew J. Plantinga, Leila M. V. Carvalho, Callum Thompson, Jacob Gellman and Kristofer Daum
Fire 2022, 5(2), 37; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire5020037 - 09 Mar 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4370
Abstract
Fuel break effectiveness in wildland-urban interface (WUI) is not well understood during downslope wind-driven fires even though various fuel treatments are conducted across the western United States. The aim of this paper is to examine the efficacy of WUI fuel breaks under the [...] Read more.
Fuel break effectiveness in wildland-urban interface (WUI) is not well understood during downslope wind-driven fires even though various fuel treatments are conducted across the western United States. The aim of this paper is to examine the efficacy of WUI fuel breaks under the influence of strong winds and dry fuels, using the 2018 Camp Fire as a case study. The operational fire growth model Prometheus was used to show: (1) downstream impacts of 200 m and 400 m wide WUI fuel breaks on fire behavior and evacuation time gain; (2) how the downstream fire behavior was affected by the width and fuel conditions of the WUI fuel breaks; and (3) the impacts of background wind speeds on the efficacy of WUI fuel breaks. Our results indicate that WUI fuel breaks may slow wildfire spread rates by dispersing the primary advancing fire front into multiple fronts of lower intensity on the downstream edge of the fuel break. However, fuel break width mattered. We found that the lateral fire spread and burned area were reduced downstream of the 400 m wide WUI fuel break more effectively than the 200 m fuel break. Further sensitivity tests showed that wind speed at the time of ignition influenced fire behavior and efficacy of management interventions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fire in California)
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19 pages, 7774 KiB  
Article
Megafires in a Warming World: What Wildfire Risk Factors Led to California’s Largest Recorded Wildfire
by Kevin Varga, Charles Jones, Anna Trugman, Leila M. V. Carvalho, Neal McLoughlin, Daisuke Seto, Callum Thompson and Kristofer Daum
Fire 2022, 5(1), 16; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire5010016 - 25 Jan 2022
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 6470
Abstract
Massive wildfires and extreme fire behavior are becoming more frequent across the western United States, creating a need to better understand how megafire behavior will evolve in our warming world. Here, the fire spread model Prometheus is used to simulate the initial explosive [...] Read more.
Massive wildfires and extreme fire behavior are becoming more frequent across the western United States, creating a need to better understand how megafire behavior will evolve in our warming world. Here, the fire spread model Prometheus is used to simulate the initial explosive growth of the 2020 August Complex, which occurred in northern California (CA) mixed conifer forests. High temperatures, low relative humidity, and daytime southerly winds were all highly correlated with extreme rates of modeled spread. Fine fuels reached very dry levels, which accelerated simulation growth and heightened fire heat release (HR). Model sensitivity tests indicate that fire growth and HR are most sensitive to aridity and fuel moisture content. Despite the impressive early observed growth of the fire, shifting the simulation ignition to a very dry September 2020 heatwave predicted a >50% increase in growth and HR, as well as increased nighttime fire activity. Detailed model analyses of how extreme fire behavior develops can help fire personnel prepare for problematic ignitions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fire in California)
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