Forest Sciences Commons^™

Barriers To Implementaion Of California Vegetation Treatment Program Projects, Jacquelyn Morales

Master of Science in Environmental Sciences and Management Projects

To better defend wild lands within California's state responsibility areas against wildfire, progress toward efficient fuels management is vital. Created in effort to increase pace and scale of forest fuels reduction, the California Vegetation Treatment Program (CalVTP) serves as method to expedite fire fuel reduction, fuel break development, and ecological restoration projects by streamlining environmental regulatory approval. To better assess the progress of fuels management projects across the state, this professional project aims to look at barriers faced by project proponents when using the CalVTP. A questionnaire was emailed to the project proponents behind the 81 unique CalVTP projects in-progress. …

Early Wildfire Detection With Line Sensors, Virginia Yan

Master's Theses

Over the last few years, wildfires have become more devastating to communities as the fires are inevitably destructive to many homes, businesses, and ecosystems. Frequent wildfires also pose a significant threat to power grids and nearby residents as they can damage transmission lines and other electrical equipment, which in turn can cause major power shutdowns. Especially in western U.S., severe drought conditions and weather variability cause residents to become more vulnerable to wildfire disasters as their safety is threatened. We are incompetent to control the wildfires effectively despite existing advanced technologies. Hence, an algorithm based on energy conservation and heat …

Post-Fire Response Of Little Creek Watershed: Evaluation Of Change In Sediment Production And Suspended Sediment Transport, Andrew Wood Loganbill

Master's Theses

The Little Creek watershed was assessed to identify changes in event-based suspended sediment export and determine the factors contributing to sediment production the first year following the Lockheed Fire in 2009. The amount and volume of near-stream sediment sources were found to decrease, while an increase in hillslope sediment production was documented. High intensity, short duration rainfall (up to 87 mm/hr for 10 minute duration) initiated extensive rilling and minor channel-derived debris torrents originating from the upper south facing slopes. Rainfall simulations, hillslope erosion plots, and soil infiltration tests indicated that fire produced soil water repellency, the lack of ground …

Post-Fire Mortality And Response In A Redwood/ Douglas-Fir Forest, Santa Cruz Mountains, California, Garren M. Andrews

Master's Theses

We investigated how fire severity impacts the survival and response (sprouting/seeding) of multiple species in the Santa Cruz Mountains of coastal California, including coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), tanoak (Lithocarpus densiflorus), and Pacific madrone(Arbutus menziesii). During August 2009 the Lockheed Fire burned nearly 3,160ha of mixed-conifer stands with variable severity. Data from 37 Continuous Forest Inventory (CFI) plots were collected immediately before and for 2 successive years following the 2009 Lockheed Fire.

This research entails three objectives. First, we quantified post-fire mortality of trees that vary in species, size, and …