Forest Sciences Commons^™

Mortality Assessment Of Redwood And Mixed Conifer Forest Types In Santa Cruz County Following Wildfire, Steve R. Auten

Master's Theses

On August 12, 2009, the Lockheed Fire ignited the west slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains burning approximately 7,819 acres. Foresters and other land managers were left with challenging decisions on how to evaluate tree mortality. Big Creek Lumber Company, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly)’s Swanton Pacific Ranch (SPR), and other resource professionals familiar with this region teamed up to develop a method for evaluating damage and thereby mortality for redwood, California nutmeg, live oak, tanoak, California bay, Pacific madrone, big leaf maple, Douglas-fir, Monterey pine, and knobcone pine. Quantitative damage criteria were used to design …

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 …

Wildland Urban Interface Assessment Of San Luis Obispo, California, Brian Hanson, Stephen Kadash, Nicholi Mackewicz

Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences

The purpose of this report is to provide a wildland fire hazard assessment of communities in the city of San Luis Obispo, California, and to identify prescriptions designed to prevent property damage and loss of life in the event of a wildfire. These prescriptions are adopted from established Shelter-In-Place communities who practice fire wise community wildfire prevention.There are eight communities that were identified as being fire prone. Each community had its own set of fire hazard, for example, flammable vegetation against a home, tall dead grass behind structures, or overhanging trees that would prevent an engine from passing. Once the …