Fire Behavior and Management in
Mediterranean-Type Ecosystems: A Summary
and Synthesis1
mapping of terrain may also be necessary. It is
also likely that more training will be required so
that fire managers fighting fire or using fire
will be able to fully utilize the capabilities of
fire behavior predictive models.
Serena C. Hunter and Charles W. Philpot2
PRESCRIBED BURNING
Our speakers have based their presentations on
practical fire management problems and solutions
in Mediterranean ecosystems. Managers in these
areas must be concerned about public safety,
costs, offsite damages, short-term weather
changes, unique resources, and a host of other
problems when designing fire management programs.
Successful fire management in these ecosystems
requires an understanding of both fire behavior
and ecological processes and their effects upon
one another. Knowledge of these factors is important for both fire use operations and fire suppression. Managers must constantly be on the
lookout for tools that can help them understand,
predict, and control fire behavior and fire
effects. These tools can aid them in planning and
carrying out successful fire management programs.
FIRE BEHAVIOR PREDICTION
One promising tool discussed during this session is a fire behavior prediction system. Albini
and Anderson described the development and implementation of fuel and fire behavior models for
chaparral. The models are part of a system now in
operation in southern California that is designed
to quantify and predict wildland fire behavior.
It takes into account the same fuel factors (loading and live/dead ratio) and environmental factors
(wind, slope, and fuel moisture content) that the
other speakers have emphasized as being important
in fire behavior.
The system is still in the process of being
tested and debugged to improve its predictive
ability. The complexity of the system makes it
difficult to determine whether less than satisfactory predictions are caused by inherent deficiencies in the model or by inaccurate descriptions of
fuel, terrain, and weather conditions at the fire
site. If the latter is the case, then its success
will depend on improved monitoring of fuel and
weather conditions during fire season. Improved
Prescribed fire is beginning to receive a more
appropriate emphasis in Mediterranean ecosystems
in the United States and Europe. Prescribed fire
has been an integral part of Mediterranean ecosystem management in Australia for years. Although some of our speakers pointed out problems
associated with prescribed burning, all were
enthusiastic about its potential.
Denny Bungarz presented a number of multifunctional land management reasons for using prescribed fire and showed us how they have been
demonstrated by the Grindstone Project on the
Mendocino National Forest. Benefits include
improved wildlife habitat, increased grazing and
water yield, enhanced recreational opportunities,
and reduced threat of wildfire. And best of all,
these benefits are not mutually exclusive. Fire
has increased the Grindstone area's potential for
multiple use. The keys to the success of the
Grindstone Project have been the long-term commitment and cooperation of the groups and agencies
involved and the willingness to try new methods of
dealing with the chaparral.
Both Mike Rogers and Pierre Delabraze point out
that percent dead material is probably the most
important vegetative characteristic in determining
how intensely a prescribed fire or a wildfire in
chaparral will burn. It is on this premise that
the concept of age-class management of fuels,
described and endorsed by Mike, is based. By
maintaining more young stands and by preventing
older stands from extending over large continuous
areas, the threat of large, high-intensity fires
can be reduced. Prescribed fire is the most
promising tool for safely reducing fuels and
achieving a desirable age-class distribution.
As Mike pointed out, one of the problems with
using prescribed fire to achieve and maintain a
desirable age-class distribution in southern
California is that there are very few days during
the year when a burn can be both safe and successful. Because of the rough terrain and dense brush
involved, not nearly enough vegetation can be
treated each year using conventional ignition
methods. The helitorch that we saw in Denny's
slide-tape promises to be at least a partial
solution to this problem.
1
Prepared for the Symposium on Dynamics and
Management of Mediterranean-type Ecosystems, June
22-26, 1981, San Diego, California.
2
Research Forester and Assistant Director,
respectively, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range
Experiment Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Riverside, Calif.
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With the helitorch, there is the potential for
safely burning hundreds of acres on a single day
for as little as $5 to $7 per acre. As we learn
to use the helitorch in various fuel types and
weather conditions, we should move cautiously,
taking the time to get the bugs out. And, undoubtedly, as we find solutions to one problem,
other problems will pop up. However, there is a
great deal of optimism that at last we have a tool
that will make age-class management of fuels in
southern California's chaparral truly feasible.
INTERNATIONAL FIRE MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS
Dr. Barber has shared with us some of the
problems of fire management in rural Victoria,
Australia, and the way that the Country Fire
Authority deals with them. When reading Dr.
Barber's paper before the Symposium, we could not
help making comparisons between the fire situation
"down under" and the situation here in southern
California. The area within the jurisdiction of
Victoria's Country Fire Authority is roughly
equivalent to one-third of the State of California--approximately 57,000 square miles. However, whereas southern California's population is
greater than 10 million, Victoria's total population is only 3,650,000 with less than one-third of
these people living in the rural areas protected
by the Country Fire Authority.
Dr. Barber's description of weather and climatic influences on fire sounded very familiar. Like
us, the Victorians experience dry summers and wet
winters. Hot, dry inland winds, comparable to our
Santa Ana's, are the most important weather factor
influencing the outbreak and spread of fire. Most
large fires in southern Australia, as in southern
California, occur on a few days of extreme fire
danger. On those days, it is impossible, in
either country, to control all fires or to prevent
disastrous losses.
The ways in which Victorians and southern
Californians are organized to combat the wildfire
problem also make an interesting contrast. Country Fire Authority volunteers are eagerly enlisted
and trained; they number over 100,000 and outnumber permanent personnel by almost 200 to 1.
Southern California's firefighting forces are made
up entirely of government-paid personnel. Both
the U.S. Forest Service and the California Department of Forestry have policies prohibiting the use
of volunteer firefighters.
Interestingly enough, Victoria's Country Fire
Authority receives only one-third of its funding
from government sources. The other two-thirds
come from insurance companies. Whether or not
these insurance companies are required to contribute to the Country Fire Authority or do so in
support of their own best interest is not clear.
Although community volunteer fire departments in
the United States undoubtedly receive some of
their financial support from private insurance
companies, most firefighting forces are strictly
government funded. The twin questions arise: "Is
government doing all it should be doing to combat
the fire problems in Victoria?" and "Should the
private sector be more involved in dealing with
the fire problem in the United States?"
Many of the fire problems faced in France's
Mediterranean region are also comparable to those
3
faced by managers in California and Australia.
The north wind that causes severe fire problems in
France is known as the mistrel. Like our Santa
Ana's, these are high-pressure gradient winds
carrying very little moisture. During the wet
season, heavy rainfall combined with the loss of
vegetation from fire produces heavy property
damage along the coast in Marseilles. This is a
problem with which Californians are all too
familiar.
Southern France has large expanses of brushcovered hills that in many ways are very similar
to those found in southern California. Until the
last few centuries, however, the vegetation on
many of these sites consisted of great stands of
commercial oak and pine. These stands were eliminated by repeated harvesting and indiscriminate
wildfire, and were replaced by brush. Although
there is evidence that some forest sites in southern California have been converted to brush for
these same reasons, the area involved is not
nearly so extensive. The French are currently
reforesting large areas with conifers.
Early in the 1800's, fire was used to clear the
forests of France. But conditions for burning
were not controlled, and the results were sometimes disastrous. Subsequently, laws prohibiting
the use of prescribed burning were passed. French
foresters are now in the process of learning to
predict and control fire behavior in various
vegetation types so that prescribed burning can
again be used safely there. Pierre Delabraze
detailed some of those efforts for us.
IMPACTS OF FIRE MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS
Land managers around the world must be concerned with the social, economic, and environmental impacts of their fire management programs.
That is why new tools and techniques such as
prescribed fire, biomass harvesting, and the
helitorch must be so thoroughly tested before they
are made operational.
All impacts--not just effects on personal life
and property, but also effects on socially valued
goods such as cultural resources, wildlife, and
long-term site productivity--must be given weight
in fire management decisions. For example, Scott
Wood's study suggests that equipment used in site
preparation, biomass harvesting, or brush crushing
can do irreparable damage to archeological resources. What about fire--is it just as damaging?
How do the effects of wildfire compare to the
effects of prescribed fire where cultural
3
Chaparral Vegetation Management Program International Study Group. Fire and fuel management in
the Mediterranean ecosystems of Spain and France.
1979. (Unpublished report).
521
resources are concerned? How do we identify and
protect areas of archeological value? Are there
ways of protecting these cultural resources without greatly disrupting our fire management activities? Answers to these questions and others
regarding impacts and potential impacts of management activities could help to make our fire management programs more sound.
CONCLUSION
The opinions presented by the speakers in this
session are their own and do not necessarily
represent the policies of their countries or
organizations. The same is true of this summary
paper. We have taken the liberty of using and
522
interpreting as we saw fit the information presented during the session. We hope that no misinterpretations have occurred.
To summarize, we have reviewed the factors that
affect fire behavior in Mediterranean-type ecosystems. Using our knowledge of these factors, we
are beginning to be able to predict wildfire
behavior with timesaving computer models. Our
increasing understanding of fire behavior is also
giving us the confidence we need to use prescribed
burning safely and successfully to achieve fuel
reduction. We are getting closer to our goal of
age-class management on chaparral lands. But, as
we move toward this goal, we must be on the lookout for social and environmental problems, such as
damage to cultural resources, that implementation
of our goal might aggravate.