Safer living in the urban-wildland interface area
Steve Quarles, a University of California Cooperative Extension advisor on performance and durability of wood-frame housing
Areas of expertise -– evaluation of housing and materials, nearby vegetation for vulnerability to wildfire in the urban-wildland interface and identification of possible mitigation in terms of design and materials options.

Quarles oversees a demonstration home in Richmond that shows various building materials, design features and landscape vegetation that can minimize fire danger. Quarles advises wildland homeowners, "You can do a lot to protect your house from a wildfire."

Steve Quarles can be reached (510) 665-3580, steve.quarles@nature.berkeley.edu. Also see:  http://groups.ucanr.org/HWMG/index.cfm.

Spring rain helps predict future fire risk
Max Moritz, UC Berkeley Cooperative Extension wildland fire specialist and co-director of the Center for Fire Research and Outreach.
Areas of expertise – Fire ecology and management, spatial analysis and GIS

Looking closely at fire history and monitoring plant moisture levels in the Santa Monica Mountains, researchers developed a way to predict when the area becomes vulnerable to large-scale fires. The fire risk prediction method was developed by Moritz; Philip Dennison, University of Utah geography professor, and Robert Taylor of the National Park Service. “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.”

For more information about the Center for Fire Research and Outreach, go to http://firecenter.berkeley.edu/. Max Moritz can be reached at (510) 642-7329, mmoritz@nature.berkeley.edu.

Wildfirezone.org provides information for homeowners threatened by fire
Terry Salmon, director of UC Cooperative Extension in San Diego County.
Areas of expertise – Public education on protecting home and property from wildfire damage

Salmon coordinated the development of the Web site http://www.wildfirezone.org, which offers extensive information for homeowners to use before, during and after a wildfire.

Terry Salmon can be reached at (858) 694-2864, tpsalmon@ucdavis.edu.

Communities are key to forest stewardship and fire prevention
Gary Nakamura, area forestry specialist for Northern California.
Areas of expertise -- Basic wildfire behavior, fuels treatments to moderate wildfire behavior, sustainable forest practices to create and maintain healthy, fire-safe forests. Nakamura is working 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. "The larger issue is maintaining healthy forests and human communities," Nakamura says, "I believe the long-term, ecologically, economically and politically sustainable maintenance of healthy forests will depend upon the understanding and action of local communities."

Gary Nakamura can be reached at (530) 224-4902, nakamura@nature.berkeley.edu. Also see: http://groups.ucanr.org/forest/

"Fire safe" councils helping avert tragedy
Glenn Nader, livestock and natural resources advisor, for Sutter, Yuba and Butte counties.
Areas of expertise -- livestock, forage crops, range and natural resources.

Nader has extensive experience working with citizens and agencies on post-fire rehabilitation. He has assembled information on what communities can do in post-fire response, and worked with communities in the formation of two "fire safe" councils that earned more than $1 million in grant funding to create evacuation plans, shaded fuel breaks and fuel treatments, hand clearing, goat grazing and biomass harvesting. "I've seen the devastating impact wildfire has on communities," Nader says. "Given fuel dynamics and the continuing migration of people into forest communities, it's not a question of if a fire will occur, but when."

Glenn Nader can be reached at (530) 822-7515, ganader@ucdavis.edu

Wildlife specialist examines role of policy
Tom Scott, area natural resources wildlife specialist for Southern California.
Areas of expertise -- conservation of wildlife, wildlife management at the urban-wildland interface, and response of wildlife to human disturbances. After a catastrophic 1993 fire season, Scott was instrumental in developing subsequent meetings and a book on fire ecology, management and policy. Scott authored Brushfires in California: Ecology and resource management in 1995, with Jon Keeley.

Tom Scott can be reached at (951) 827-5115, tomscott@citrus.ucr.edu

Creating sustainable and fire safe landscapes
Sabrina Drill, Natural resources advisor for Los Angeles and Ventura counties

Drill holds workshops to teach homeowners that the arrangement and proper maintenance of plants around homes in the wildland-urban interface can help reduce the risk of wildfire. Also, that choosing the right plants can protect the health of neighboring habitat by limiting the introduction of invasive plants.

Sabrina Drill can be reached at (323) 260-3404, sldrill@ucdavis.edu. See also http://celosangeles.ucdavis.edu/Natural_Resources/Wildland_Fire.htm.

Tools for homeowners and communities in the wildland-urban interface
Faith Kearns, Associate Director, Center for Fire Research and Outreach
Areas of expertise -- wildland-urban interface, watershed management, GIS and webGIS, outreach and communications.

Faith Kearns manages the administrative functions of the fire center, and participates in research and outreach activities. She led the development of the 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 received her doctorate from the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley, where her research focused on landscape ecology and community-based natural resource monitoring using web-based Geographic Information Systems.

Faith Kearns can be reached at (510) 643-0409, fkearns@nature.berkeley.edu


UC’s Fire Science Lab examines role of fire in ecosystems
Scott L. Stephens, UC Berkeley associate professor of fire science in the College of Natural Resources
Areas of expertise -- prescribed fire, wildfire, fire hazard treatments that can be applied to forests, fire policy, wildfire in changing climates http://firecenter.berkeley.edu/. This is the only fire center in the UC system and is designed to provide fire information to agencies, managers, and the public.

Stephens runs the Fire Science Laboratory at UC Berkeley. With nearly a dozen graduate students and staff, the lab conducts research on 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, how Sudden Oak Death is affecting fuel loads and wildfire hazard, and how climate and fire interact in a never-logged forest ecosystem with no fire suppression. "Many of California's ecosystems are fire adapted but our culture has tried to eliminate fire for the last 100 years," Stephens said. "Restoration is becoming a common land management objective, but we lack fundamental information of how fire and ecosystems interact." The goal of the Fire Science Lab is to assist in finding answers to these complex problems. Stephens is currently studying fire-climate interactions in the Southern California mountains. Stephens is also co-director of the UC Center for Fire Research and Outreach,

Scott Stephens can be reached at (510) 642-7304, stephens@nature.berkeley.edu. Also see http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/stephens-lab.

Finding new ways to utilize "biomass"
John Shelly, forest products and biomass utilization advisor
Areas of expertise -- forest products, wood manufacturing methods, biomass utilization, physical properties of wood.

"'Biomass' is a broad term we wood scientists use to describe the trees, shrubs and other vegetation that 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.

John Shelly can be reached at (510) 665-3491, john.shelly@nature.berkeley.edu. Web site: http://www.ucfpl.ucop.edu/ERBiomass.htm

Developing wildfire fighting strategies
Keith Gilless, UC Berkeley professor of forest economics in the College of Natural Resources. Area of expertise -- Wildland fire protection planning; forest economics and management; evaluation of prescribed burning.

Gilless studies large urban-wildland fires, including the Oakland-Berkeley and Santa Barbara fires. These studies were designed to evaluate 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 agencies in evaluation of dispatching policies and stationing strategies for firefighting resources. The simulation has been used by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and other agencies to analyze their wildland fire protection plans.

Keith Gilless can be reached at (510) 642-6388, gilless@nature.berkeley.edu

Demonstration project thinning small trees
Mike De Lasaux, natural resources advisor for Plumas and Sierra counties.
Areas of expertise -- forestry and watershed management.

De Lasaux is overseeing a seven-county demonstration project in the northern Sierra Nevada that is showing non-industrial forest owners how to mechanically thin dense stands of small trees with small-scale logging equipment. Wildland fires are becoming increasingly common as more people move to rural areas, De Lasaux says. We must alleviate the wildfire risk by reducing excessive fuel accumulations in the wildland areas.

Mike De Lasaux can be reached at (530) 283-6125, mjdelasaux@ucdavis.edu

Recovery from last summer’s devastating Angora Fire near Lake Tahoe
Susan Kocher, UC Cooperative Extension natural resources advisor, Lake Tahoe
Areas of expertise – Forestry, defensible space, forestland wildfire recovery monitoring

Kocher is initiating a research project to study how forestland that burned in the early summer 2007 Angora Fire recovers. She will compare land owned by the California Tahoe Conservancy, on which the partially burned trees are being salvaged, with land owned by the U.S. Forest Service, which will be left alone for at least a few years while the agency undertakes a process required by federal laws to determine its fate. "A third of the fire area burned very severely and all the trees are dead. About half the area burned moderately. Some trees may still be dying off. The remainder of the fire area burned very lightly. Those trees are in good shape because their competition was thinned out," Kocher said. Kocher helped the Conservancy inventory their burned lands and, in late August, crews were salvaging the wood. "Some believe salvage logging gets the area ready for regrowth, others would rather allow the natural process to take place. We'll be able to compare the different approaches," Kocher said.

Susan Kocher can be reached at (530) 542-2571, skocher@nature.berkeley.edu. Also see “Living with Fire in the Tahoe Basin” Web site, http://www.livingwithfire.info/tahoe/