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Wildfire & Forest Resilience in State Parks

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In response to the historic California wildfire season of 2020, Governor Newsom's Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force released California's Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan (Plan) in 2021. The Plan introduces a comprehensive framework for establishing healthy and resilient forests that can withstand and adapt to wildfire, drought, and a changing climate.

In the Plan, State Parks is specifically called upon to:

(1) Scale up prescribed fire and fuel reduction programs;

(2) Expand collaboration with neighboring landowners and agencies to promote resilient and healthy forests at a landscape scale;

(3) Increase outreach and education to share best practices that support ecosystem services; and

(4) Implement an effective monitoring program to gather information on the ecological benefits of these practices.

As the steward of some of the state's most highly valued natural and cultural resources, State Parks is committed to providing for the continued resilience of those resources through the work of its natural resources staff.

Upon the release of the Plan and dedicated funding in 2021, Natural Resources Division (NRD) and statewide State Parks staff created the Wildfire and Forest Resilience Program (WFRP). By significantly increasing funding for wildfire and forest resilience work statewide, the WFRP expands on critical land management that State Parks has been carrying out for decades. The WFRP will allow State Parks to "lead by example" (as encouraged in the Plan), increasing the pace and scale of fuels treatments so that State Parks lands can become an example of resilient ecosystems maintained through active stewardship.

WFRP work carried out at park units includes ecosystem resilience treatments (e.g. prescribed burning, forest thinning, associated monitoring), post-wildfire recovery and restoration work, pre-wildfire planning, and education and outreach related to wildfire and forest resilience. The WFRP staff at NRD work to increase the efficacy of the WFRP by standardizing statewide monitoring and data collection efforts, organizing key trainings for State Parks staff implementing WFRP work, building statewide partnerships and agreements, supporting planning and implementation of work at park units, and otherwise coordinating efforts in order to build capacity across the state.

A key feature of WFRP, and State Parks' Natural Resources program more broadly, is a focus on collaboration and partnership to increase the efficacy and scale of land management treatments. If you are involved with an organization doing relevant work near State Parks land, involved with landscape scale planning efforts that encompass State Parks land, conducting research that could be relevant to State Parks land, or otherwise seeking to collaborate with State Parks' WFRP, please reach out to WFRP staff at NRD in Sacramento. We are always looking to collaborate.

To contact NRD staff in Sacramento, please send an email to: natural.resources@parks.ca.gov

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California State Parks, State of California

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The Sequoia Environmental Education Directive is a coalition of environmental education organizations established in 2014. Their goal is to link classroom learning with real world applications through outdoor education in and around Tulare County.

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Welcome to SEED! The Sequoia Environmental Education Directive is a coalition of environmental education organizations established in 2014. Our goal is to link classroom learning with real world applications through outdoor education in and around Tulare County. This spring, we are welcoming new

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The Essential Principles of Climate Literacy

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The Essential Principles of Climate Literacy

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Climate and energy are complex topics. There are many ways to approach climate and energy depending on the grade level, course topics and instructional method.

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Less than 5 minutes animated short science explainer about fire

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Is fire a solid, a liquid, or a gas? - Elizabeth Cox

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Sitting around a campfire, you can feel its heat, smell the woody smoke, and hear it crackle. If you get too close, it burns your eyes and stings your nostrils. You could stare at the bright flames forever as they twist and flicker in endless incarnations... But what exactly are you looking at?

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A podcast series featuring research and science published in the journal of fire ecology

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Fire Ecology Chats - Association for Fire Ecology

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Matt Reilly discusses using remote sensing to detect delayed mortality through spectral decline in trees in California, Oregon, and Washington over a five-year period following a fire.

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National Park Service short article about indigenous fire practices

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In the Northern Rockies, tribes such as the Salish, Pend d'Oreille, and others periodically set fire to the land for thousands of years, which had a profound impact on plant and animal communities. Fires were traditionally used to reduce the risk of more serious fires, to nurture the land to support specific vegetation used for food and medicine, to provide better quality grazing land for horses, and more. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes website contains a wealth of information, including information on landscapes shaped by fire and how fire suppression has changed them, elder interviews about fire, a Coyote fire story about the gift of fire, and information about the traditional use of fire by the tribes and how tribes are using fire on the landscape today (CKST, 2021).

Throughout California, Indigenous nations have used fire for thousands of years as a tool to steward the land, and still do today. When Europeans colonized California, they found a garden of redwoods and other lands. Evidence of this stewardship can still be seen on the trees at Muir Woods. Fire scars tell the story of Indigenous cultural burns set by the first stewards of Muir Woods, the Coast Miwok. Cultural burns passed down through generations have benefited both land and people, by improving soil quality, and spurring growth of certain plant species, creating a healthy and resilient landscape.

For more than 4,000 years, American Indians have relied on Yosemite Valley's meadows and oak woodlands to provide food, medicine, and materials for baskets, string, and shelter. Yosemite's early inhabitants periodically set fires to promote the growth milkweed, dogbane, sedge root, and bunch grass. Research on mud cored from Yosemite Valley showed a marked increase in ash deposits after people began living in Yosemite Valley.

Some tribes in the western states also used fire to ensure growth of straight and slender types of specific plants used for making woven baskets, or to provide habitat for certain bird species whose feathers were used for ceremonial dress (Roos, 2021).

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Indigenous Fire Practices Shape our Land - Fire (U.S. National Park Service)

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For many millenia, fire was integral to many Indigenous peoples' way of life. This page describes ways Indigenous people used fire in the past, as well as current partnerships working to preserve cultural burns.

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Fireline is a six part Podcast series about what wildfire means for the West, our planet, and our way of life.

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By just about every measure, wildfires are getting bigger, hotter and more devastating than we've ever seen before. But what all that fire means - and what to do about it - depends on who you ask.

Get a broader perspective on wildfires, our role in fueling and fighting them, and our reaction to them.

Fireline is a six part series about what wildfire means for the West, our planet and our way of life. Listen now or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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Exploring what wildfire means for the West, our planet and our way of life

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Junior Forester Activity Booklet from California State Parks

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Two scenes. In the first, a doctor gets a call—the hospital she works at is having an outbreak of unknown origin, in the middle of the worst wildfire season on record. In the second, an ecologist stands in a forest, watching it burn. Through very different circumstances, they both find themselves asking the same question: is there something in the smoke? This question will bring them together, and reveal—to all of us—a world we never saw before.

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Two scenes. In the first, a doctor gets a call-the hospital she works at is having an outbreak of unknown origin, in the middle of the worst wildfire season on record. In the second, an ecologist stands in a forest, watching it burn. Through very different circumstances, they both find themselves asking the same question: is there something in the smoke? This question will bring them together, and reveal-to all of us-a world we never saw before.

This is the first episode in an ongoing series hosted by Molly Webster, in conversation with scientists and science-y people, doing work at the furthest edges of what we know. More to come!

Special thanks to Leda Kobziar, at the University of Idaho, and Naomi Hauser, at the University of California, Davis. Plus, James and Shelby Kaemmerer, and Paula and John Troche.

We have some exciting news! In the " Zoozve" episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth's quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon

EPISODE CREDITS:
Hosted and Reported by - Molly Webster
Produced by - Sindhu Gnanasambandan
Fact-checking by - Diane A. Kelly
and Edited by - Pat Walters
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Articles -

And lastly, wanna learn more about bacteria in snow-making machines - check out this New York Times article (https://zpr.io/t6HKi7HMuHMZ), or this science-explainer (https://zpr.io/VygRVBb5vspq)!

Scientific Papers -

Read Leda's paper on microbes in smoke (https://zpr.io/d3JVm7gEf2dc)!

For more details on the outbreak at Naomi's hospital, you can check out this abstract of her findings (https://zpr.io/DGgS9UCFicpJ).

Leda was inspired to stick petri dishes into smoke after reading a science research paper written by a father-daughter team, as part of a high school science project in Texas. Go read it (https://zpr.io/D3LVMy2raLr9)!

For further fungal listening, Radiolab and Molly have covered fungus and hospital outbreaks ( https://radiolab.org/podcast/fungus-amungus) before (plus: dinosuars!), in our episode Fungus Amungus.

You can also listen to (https://radiolab.org/podcast/super-cool-2017), a Radiolab episode about wild horses, microbes, and things freezing instantaneously. (It's seriously one of Molly's favorite Radiolab episodes and it has a moment of such SPONTANEOUS joy, she re-plays it at least once a year to smile.)

Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of Leadership support for Radiolab's science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.

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Wildfires, a mysterious outbreak, and a question: is there something in the smoke?