Contrasting controls on wildland fires in Southern California during periods with and without Santa Ana winds

Jin, Yufang; Randerson, James T.; Faivre, Nicolas; Capps, S. B.; Hall, Alex; Goulden, Michael L.

doi:10.1002/2013jg002541

Cited by 76 publications

(114 citation statements)

References 85 publications

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“…The nominal precipitation that occurs during summer in southern California is uncorrelated with historical burned area [20], although precipitation during the month of fire activity is negatively correlated with the sizes of Santa Ana driven fires [3].…”

Section: Climatic Basismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Increased moisture content and biomass productivity in semi-arid regions often help promote fire in fuel-limited fire regimes through the accumulation of fine fuels that facilitate fire spread [52]. Previous climate-fire relationships have shown a weak positive correlation between early winter precipitation and burned area during the subsequent fire season in non-forested areas of southern California [20] and cumulative precipitation in several recent winters [3].…”

Section: Climatic Basismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many wind-driven fires that occur in the coastal ranges of California burn across steep terrain with fuels shaped by a Mediterranean climate during periods of strong foehn winds in early autumn when fuels remain dry prior to the onset of cool-season precipitation [3,4]. The coincidence of land development in areas prone to wind driven extreme fire weather (i.e., Diablo winds [5], Santa Ana winds [6]) results in fire-related hazards for a large number of people [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The reasons behind these diverging trends may be tied to a decrease in reported fire ignitions [17], which are nearly all human-caused [18], as well as anthropogenic activities including land-use, fire policies, and diligent fire suppression [19]. Nonetheless, interannual climate variability does exhibit significant relationships to burned area extent in these regions [3,17,20,21]. Mediterranean ecosystems are intermediate productivity biomes where fire is often not purely fuel-limited or flammability-limited during the fire season [22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

The 2017 North Bay and Southern California Fires: A Case Study

Nauslar

Abatzoglou

Marsh³

2018

Fire

132

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Two extreme wind-driven wildfire events impacted California in late 2017, leading to 46 fatalities and thousands of structures lost. This study characterizes the meteorological and climatological factors that drove and enabled these wildfire events and quantifies their rarity over the observational record. Both events featured key fire-weather metrics that were unprecedented in the observational record that followed a sequence of climatic conditions that enhanced fine fuel abundance and fuel availability. The North Bay fires of October 2017 occurred coincident with strong downslope winds, with a majority of burned area occurring within the first 12 h of ignition. By contrast, the southern California fires of December 2017 occurred during the longest Santa Ana wind event on record, resulting in the largest wildfire in California's modern history. Both fire events occurred following an exceptionally wet winter that was preceded by a severe four-year drought. Fuels were further preconditioned by the warmest summer and autumn on record in northern and southern California, respectively. Finally, delayed onset of autumn precipitation allowed for critically low dead fuel moistures leading up to the wind events. Fire weather conditions were well forecast several days prior to the fire. However, the rarity of fire-weather conditions that occurred near populated regions, along with other societal factors such as limited evacuation protocols and limited wildfire preparedness in communities outside of the traditional wildland urban interface were key contributors to the widespread wildfire impacts.

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Section: Climatic Basismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Climatic Basismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The 2017 North Bay and Southern California Fires: A Case Study

Nauslar

Abatzoglou

Marsh³

2018

Fire

132

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Typically, the Mediterranean climate is characterized by a moderate winter and dry summer, which makes the chaparral biome most vulnerable to fires in summer and fall (Jin et al, 2014). In California, the combination of human ignition, the large wildland-urban interface, and extreme fire weather characterized by high temperatures, low humidities, and high offshore Santa Ana winds (Moritz et al, 2010) may lead to large and costly wildfires .…”

Section: Chaparralmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biomass burning fuel consumption rates: a field measurement database

Leeuwen

Werf²,

Hoffmann³

et al. 2014

Biogeosciences

142

133

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Abstract. Landscape fires show large variability in the amount of biomass or fuel consumed per unit area burned. Fuel consumption (FC) depends on the biomass available to burn and the fraction of the biomass that is actually combusted, and can be combined with estimates of area burned to assess emissions. While burned area can be detected from space and estimates are becoming more reliable due to improved algorithms and sensors, FC is usually modeled or taken selectively from the literature. We compiled the peerreviewed literature on FC for various biomes and fuel categories to understand FC and its variability better, and to provide a database that can be used to constrain biogeochemical models with fire modules. We compiled in total 77 studies covering 11 biomes including savanna (15 studies, average FC of 4.6 t DM (dry matter) ha −1 with a standard deviation of 2.2), tropical forest (n = 19, FC = 126 ± 77), temperate forest (n = 12, FC = 58 ± 72), boreal forest (n = 16, FC = 35 ± 24), pasture (n = 4, FC = 28 ± 9.3), shifting cultivation (n = 2, FC = 23, with a range of 4.0-43), crop residue (n = 4, FC = 6.5 ± 9.0), chaparral (n = 3, FC = 27 ± 19), tropical peatland (n = 4, FC = 314 ± 196), boreal peatland (n = 2, FC = 42 [42-43]), and tundra (n = 1, FC = 40). Within biomes the regional variability in the number of measurements was sometimes large, with e.g. only three measurement locations in boreal Russia and 35 sites in North America. Substantial regional differences in FC were found within the defined biomes: for example, FC of temperate pine forests in the USA was 37 % lower than Australian forests dominated by eucalypt trees. Besides showing the differences between biomes, FC estimates were also grouped into different fuel classes. Our results highlight the large variability in FC, not only between biomes but also within biomes and fuel classes. This implies that substantial uncertainties are associated with using biome-averaged values to represent FC for whole biomes. Comparing the compiled FC values with co-located Global Fire Emissions Database version 3 (GFED3) FC indicates that modeling studies that aim to represent variability in FC also within biomes, still require improvements as they have difficulty in representing the dynamics governing FC.

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Characteristics and controls of extremely large wildfires in the western Mediterranean Basin

et al. 2016

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Large fires account for a disproportionally high percentage of area burned with potentially severe environmental and socioeconomic impacts. This study characterizes extremely large fires (ELFs; 2500–24,843 ha) in Portugal (1998–2013) and the concomitant fuel and weather conditions, analyzing the response of ELF size to their variation. ELF burned less shrubland‐grassland (33% of the total ELF area) than forest (59% of total), the latter primarily composed by pine and pine‐eucalypt. High fuel hazard was the norm, as indicated by median values of 0.98 for fuel load as a fraction of potential (maximum) load and time since fire >14 years over 91% of the burned area. ELF occurred under anticyclonic circulation patterns, especially ridging, and 78% of them coincided with extreme fire danger days (corresponding to infrequent conditions) in conjunction with unstable atmosphere. Containment time, fire growth rate, and energy release metrics varied by 1 more order of magnitude than ELF size, hence indicating that size alone is insufficient to describe extreme fires. Distinct combinations between ambient weather conditions, atmospheric instability, and drought defined three categories of ELF as defined by size. Quantile regression indicated that increasingly larger fires showed gradually stronger responses to fire weather severity, highlighting the difficulty in restraining fire spread in flammable landscapes in the absence of extensive fuel treatments. Data limitations inherent to the methods used are discussed, and improvements to further advance the understanding of extreme fires are suggested.

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Contrasting controls on wildland fires in Southern California during periods with and without Santa Ana winds

Cited by 76 publications

References 85 publications

The 2017 North Bay and Southern California Fires: A Case Study

The 2017 North Bay and Southern California Fires: A Case Study

Biomass burning fuel consumption rates: a field measurement database

Characteristics and controls of extremely large wildfires in the western Mediterranean Basin

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