Papers on California wildfires

This is a list of papers on California wildfires with an emphasis on climate related papers. The list is not complete, and will most likely be updated in future in order to make it more thorough and more representative.

Distribution and frequency of wildfire in California riparian ecosystems (Bendix and Commons, 2017) [FULL TEXT]
Abstract: “Although wildfire has been recognized as having important ecological impacts on California’s riparian environments, understanding of its occurrence is largely anecdotal, based on studies of fire impacts in scattered locations. In this paper we use data for 21 years of wildfires to examine the distribution, seasonality and climatic context of riparian wildfire across the state. We used the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity and LANDFIRE databases to identify fires that had burned in areas classified as having riparian vegetation, and matched those fires with the Fire and Resource Assessment Program database to determine the date of occurrence of each. From 1990 through 2010, an average of 1197 ha of riparian vegetation burned per year, which extrapolates to a fire return interval of 843 years. The statewide totals are misleading, however, because there is substantial geographic variance in the occurrence of riparian fire. In southern California ecoregions, extrapolated return intervals are as low as 74 years, contrasting with the Basin and Range ecoregions, where return intervals exceed 1000 years. Moreover, there is substantial geographic variation in the season of riparian fire, and in the relationship between fire occurrence and climatic variables. Both the widespread occurrence of riparian fire and its spatial variability are potentially important for management of critical riparian habitat.”
Citation: Jacob Bendix and Michael G Commons 2017 Environ. Res. Lett. 12 075008, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7087.

Incorporating Anthropogenic Influences into Fire Probability Models: Effects of Human Activity and Climate Change on Fire Activity in California (Mann et al. 2016) [FULL TEXT]
Abstract: “The costly interactions between humans and wildfires throughout California demonstrate the need to understand the relationships between them, especially in the face of a changing climate and expanding human communities. Although a number of statistical and process-based wildfire models exist for California, there is enormous uncertainty about the location and number of future fires, with previously published estimates of increases ranging from nine to fifty-three percent by the end of the century. Our goal is to assess the role of climate and anthropogenic influences on the state’s fire regimes from 1975 to 2050. We develop an empirical model that integrates estimates of biophysical indicators relevant to plant communities and anthropogenic influences at each forecast time step. Historically, we find that anthropogenic influences account for up to fifty percent of explanatory power in the model. We also find that the total area burned is likely to increase, with burned area expected to increase by 2.2 and 5.0 percent by 2050 under climatic bookends (PCM and GFDL climate models, respectively). Our two climate models show considerable agreement, but due to potential shifts in rainfall patterns, substantial uncertainty remains for the semiarid inland deserts and coastal areas of the south. Given the strength of human-related variables in some regions, however, it is clear that comprehensive projections of future fire activity should include both anthropogenic and biophysical influences. Previous findings of substantially increased numbers of fires and burned area for California may be tied to omitted variable bias from the exclusion of human influences. The omission of anthropogenic variables in our model would overstate the importance of climatic ones by at least 24%. As such, the failure to include anthropogenic effects in many models likely overstates the response of wildfire to climatic change.”
Citation: Mann ML, Batllori E, Moritz MA, Waller EK, Berck P, Flint AL, et al. (2016) Incorporating Anthropogenic Influences into Fire Probability Models: Effects of Human Activity and Climate Change on Fire Activity in California. PLoS ONE 11(4): e0153589. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0153589.

Large wildfire trends in the western United States, 1984–2011 (Dennison et al. 2014) [FULL TEXT]
Abstract: “We used a database capturing large wildfires (> 405 ha) in the western U.S. to document regional trends in fire occurrence, total fire area, fire size, and day of year of ignition for 1984–2011. Over the western U.S. and in a majority of ecoregions, we found significant, increasing trends in the number of large fires and/or total large fire area per year. Trends were most significant for southern and mountain ecoregions, coinciding with trends toward increased drought severity. For all ecoregions combined, the number of large fires increased at a rate of seven fires per year, while total fire area increased at a rate of 355 km2 per year. Continuing changes in climate, invasive species, and consequences of past fire management, added to the impacts of larger, more frequent fires, will drive further disruptions to fire regimes of the western U.S. and other fire‐prone regions of the world.”
Citation: Dennison, P. E., S. C. Brewer, J. D. Arnold, and M. A. Moritz (2014), Large wildfire trends in the western United States, 1984–2011, Geophys. Res. Lett., 41, 2928–2933, doi: 10.1002/2014GL059576.

Trends in wildfire severity: 1984 to 2010 in the Sierra Nevada, Modoc Plateau, and southern Cascades, California, USA (Miller and Safford, 2012) [FULL TEXT]
Abstract: “Data from recent assessments indicate that the annual area of wildfires burning at high severity (where most trees are killed) has increased since 1984 across much of the southwestern United States. Increasing areas of high-severity fire can occur when greater area is burned at constant proportion of high-severity fire, or when the proportion of high-severity fire within fire perimeters increases, or some combination of both. For the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment (SNFPA) area, which includes forestlands in eastern California and western Nevada, Miller et al. (2009a) concluded that the proportion of area burning at high severity in mixed-conifer forests had risen over the 1984 to 2004 period. However, no statistical assessment was made of the temporal trend in high-severity fire area because the analyzed dataset was incomplete in the early years of the study period. In this update, we use satellite-derived estimates of fire severity from the three most widely distributed SNFPA forest types to examine the trend in percent high severity and highseverity fire area for all wildfires ≥80 ha that occurred during the 1984 to 2010 period. Time-series regression modeling indicates that the percentage of total high severity per year for a combination of yellow pine (ponderosa pine [Pinus ponderosa Lawson & C. Lawson] or Jeffrey pine [P. jeffreyi Balf.]) and mixed-conifer forests increased significantly over the 27-year period. The annual area of high-severity fire also increased significantly in yellow pine-mixed-conifer forests. The percentage of high severity in fires ≥400 ha burning in yellow pine-mixed-conifer forests was significantly higher than in fires <400 ha. Additionally, the number of fires ≥400 ha significantly increased over the 1950 to 2010 period. There were no significant trends in red fir (Abies magnifica A. Murray bis) forests. These results confirm and expand our earlier published results for a shorter 21-year period."
Citation: Jay D. Miller, Hugh Safford, Fire Ecology, 8(3), doi: 10.4996/fireecology.0803041.

Climate change and growth scenarios for California wildfire (Westerling et al. 2011) [FULL TEXT]
Abstract: “Large wildfire occurrence and burned area are modeled using hydroclimate and landsurface characteristics under a range of future climate and development scenarios. The range of uncertainty for future wildfire regimes is analyzed over two emissions pathways (the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios [SRES] A2 and B1 scenarios); three global climate models (Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques CM3, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory CM2.1 and National Center for Atmospheric Research PCM1); three scenarios for future population growth and development footprint; and two thresholds for defining the wildland-urban interface relative to housing density. Results were assessed for three 30-year time periods centered on 2020, 2050, and 2085, relative to a 30-year reference period centered on 1975. Increases in wildfire burned area are anticipated for most scenarios, although the range of outcomes is large and increases with time. The increase in wildfire burned area associated with the higher emissions pathway (SRES A2) is substantial, with increases statewide ranging from 36% to 74% by 2085, and increases exceeding 100% in much of the forested areas of Northern California in every SRES A2 scenario by 2085.”
Citation: Westerling, A.L., Bryant, B.P., Preisler, H.K. et al. Climatic Change (2011) 109(Suppl 1): 445. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0329-9.

Paleofire reconstruction for high-elevation forests in the Sierra Nevada, California, with implications for wildfire synchrony and climate variability in the late Holocene (Hallett and Anderson, 2010) [FULL TEXT]
Abstract: “Here, we present two high-resolution records of macroscopic charcoal from high-elevation lake sites in the Sierra Nevada, California, and evaluate the synchroneity of fire response for east- and west-side subalpine forests during the past 9200 yr. Charcoal influx was low between 11,200 and 8000 cal yr BP when vegetation consisted of sparse Pinus-dominated forest and montane chaparral shrubs. High charcoal influx after 8000 cal yr BP marks the arrival of Tsuga mertensiana and Abies magnifica, and a higher-than-present treeline that persisted into the mid-Holocene. Coeval decreases in fire episode frequency coincide with neoglacial advances and lower treeline in the Sierra Nevada after 3800 cal yr BP. Independent fire response occurs between 9200 and 5000 cal yr BP, and significant synchrony at 100- to 1000-yr timescales emerges between 5000 cal yr BP and the present, especially during the last 2500 yr. Indistinguishable fire-return interval distributions and synchronous fires show that climatic control of fire became increasingly important during the late Holocene. Fires after 1200 cal yr BP are often synchronous and corroborate with inferred droughts. Holocene fire activity in the high Sierra Nevada is driven by changes in climate linked to insolation and appears to be sensitive to the dynamics of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation.”
Citation: Hallett, D., & Anderson, R. (2010). Paleofire reconstruction for high-elevation forests in the Sierra Nevada, California, with implications for wildfire synchrony and climate variability in the late Holocene. Quaternary Research, 73(2), 180-190. doi:10.1016/j.yqres.2009.11.008.

Impacts of climate change from 2000 to 2050 on wildfire activity and carbonaceous aerosol concentrations in the western United States (Spracklen et al. 2009) [FULL TEXT]
Abstract: “We investigate the impact of climate change on wildfire activity and carbonaceous aerosol concentrations in the western United States. We regress observed area burned onto observed meteorological fields and fire indices from the Canadian Fire Weather Index system and find that May–October mean temperature and fuel moisture explain 24–57% of the variance in annual area burned in this region. Applying meteorological fields calculated by a general circulation model (GCM) to our regression model, we show that increases in temperature cause annual mean area burned in the western United States to increase by 54% by the 2050s relative to the present day. Changes in area burned are ecosystem dependent, with the forests of the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains experiencing the greatest increases of 78 and 175%, respectively. Increased area burned results in near doubling of wildfire carbonaceous aerosol emissions by midcentury. Using a chemical transport model driven by meteorology from the same GCM, we calculate that climate change will increase summertime organic carbon (OC) aerosol concentrations over the western United States by 40% and elemental carbon (EC) concentrations by 20% from 2000 to 2050. Most of this increase (75% for OC and 95% for EC) is caused by larger wildfire emissions with the rest caused by changes in meteorology and for OC by increased monoterpene emissions in a warmer climate. Such an increase in carbonaceous aerosol would have important consequences for western U.S. air quality and visibility.”
Citation: Spracklen, D. V., L. J. Mickley, J. A. Logan, R. C. Hudman, R. Yevich, M. D. Flannigan, and A. L. Westerling (2009), Impacts of climate change from 2000 to 2050 on wildfire activity and carbonaceous aerosol concentrations in the western United States, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D20301, doi: 10.1029/2008JD010966.

Environmental controls on the distribution of wildfire at multiple spatial scales (Parisien and Moritz, 2009) [FULL TEXT]
Abstract: “Despite its widespread occurrence globally, wildfire preferentially occupies an environmental middle ground and is significantly less prevalent in biomes characterized by environmental extremes (e.g., tundra, rain forests, and deserts). We evaluated the biophysical “environmental space” of wildfire from regional to subcontinental extents, with methods widely used for modeling habitat distributions. This approach is particularly suitable for the biogeographic study of wildfire, because it simultaneously considers patterns in multiple factors controlling wildfire suitability over large areas. We used the Maxent and boosted regression tree algorithms to assess wildfire–environment relationships for three levels of complexity (in terms of inclusion of variables) at three spatial scales: the conterminous United States, the state of California, and five wildfire‐prone ecoregions of California. The resulting models were projected geographically to obtain spatial predictions of wildfire suitability and were also applied to other regions to assess their generality and spatial transferability. Predictions of the potential range of wildfire had high classification accuracy; they also highlighted areas where wildfires had not recently been observed, indicating the potential (or past) suitability of these areas. The models identified several key variables that were not suspected to be important in the large‐scale control of wildfires, but which might indirectly affect control by influencing the presence of flammable vegetation. Models transferred to different areas were useful only when they overlapped appreciably with the target area’s environmental space. This approach should allow exploration of the potential shifts in wildfire range in a changing climate, the potential for restoration of wildfire where it has been “extirpated,” and, conversely, the “invasiveness” of wildfire after changes in plant species composition. Our study demonstrates that habitat distribution models and related concepts can be used to characterize environmental controls on a natural disturbance process, but also that future work is needed to refine our understanding of the direct causal factors controlling wildfire at multiple spatial scales.”
Citation: Parisien, M. and Moritz, M. A. (2009), Environmental controls on the distribution of wildfire at multiple spatial scales. Ecological Monographs, 79: 127-154. doi:10.1890/07-1289.1.

Climate and wildfire area burned in western U.S. ecoprovinces, 1916–2003 (Littell et al. 2009) [FULL TEXT]
Abstract: “The purpose of this paper is to quantify climatic controls on the area burned by fire in different vegetation types in the western United States. We demonstrate that wildfire area burned (WFAB) in the American West was controlled by climate during the 20th century (1916–2003). Persistent ecosystem‐specific correlations between climate and WFAB are grouped by vegetation type (ecoprovinces). Most mountainous ecoprovinces exhibit strong year‐of‐fire relationships with low precipitation, low Palmer drought severity index (PDSI), and high temperature. Grass‐ and shrub‐dominated ecoprovinces had positive relationships with antecedent precipitation or PDSI. For 1977–2003, a few climate variables explain 33–87% (mean = 64%) of WFAB, indicating strong linkages between climate and area burned. For 1916–2003, the relationships are weaker, but climate explained 25–57% (mean = 39%) of the variability. The variance in WFAB is proportional to the mean squared for different data sets at different spatial scales. The importance of antecedent climate (summer drought in forested ecosystems and antecedent winter precipitation in shrub and grassland ecosystems) indicates that the mechanism behind the observed fire–climate relationships is climatic preconditioning of large areas of low fuel moisture via drying of existing fuels or fuel production and drying. The impacts of climate change on fire regimes will therefore vary with the relative energy or water limitations of ecosystems. Ecoprovinces proved a useful compromise between ecologically imprecise state‐level and localized gridded fire data. The differences in climate–fire relationships among the ecoprovinces underscore the need to consider ecological context (vegetation, fuels, and seasonal climate) to identify specific climate drivers of WFAB. Despite the possible influence of fire suppression, exclusion, and fuel treatment, WFAB is still substantially controlled by climate. The implications for planning and management are that future WFAB and adaptation to climate change will likely depend on ecosystem‐specific, seasonal variation in climate. In fuel‐limited ecosystems, fuel treatments can probably mitigate fire vulnerability and increase resilience more readily than in climate‐limited ecosystems, in which large severe fires under extreme weather conditions will continue to account for most area burned.”
Citation: Littell, J. S., McKenzie, D. , Peterson, D. L. and Westerling, A. L. (2009), Climate and wildfire area burned in western U.S. ecoprovinces, 1916–2003. Ecological Applications, 19: 1003-1021. doi:10.1890/07-1183.1.

Climate change and wildfire in California (Westerling and Bryant, 2008) [FULL TEXT]
Abstract: “Wildfire risks for California under four climatic change scenarios were statistically modeled as functions of climate, hydrology, and topography. Wildfire risks for the GFDL and PCM global climate models and the A2 and B1 emissions scenarios were compared for 2005–2034, 2035–2064, and 2070–2099 against a modeled 1961–1990 reference period in California and neighboring states. Outcomes for the GFDL model runs, which exhibit higher temperatures than the PCM model runs, diverged sharply for different kinds of fire regimes, with increased temperatures promoting greater large fire frequency in wetter, forested areas, via the effects of warmer temperatures on fuel flammability. At the same time, reduced moisture availability due to lower precipitation and higher temperatures led to reduced fire risks in some locations where fuel flammability may be less important than the availability of fine fuels. Property damages due to wildfires were also modeled using the 2000 U.S. Census to describe the location and density of residential structures. In this analysis the largest changes in property damages under the climate change scenarios occurred in wildland/urban interfaces proximate to major metropolitan areas in coastal southern California, the Bay Area, and in the Sierra foothills northeast of Sacramento.”
Citation: Westerling, A.L. & Bryant, B.P. Climatic Change (2008) 87(Suppl 1): 231. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-007-9363-z.

Human influence on California fire regimes (Syphard et al. 2007) [FULL TEXT]
Abstract: “Periodic wildfire maintains the integrity and species composition of many ecosystems, including the mediterranean‐climate shrublands of California. However, human activities alter natural fire regimes, which can lead to cascading ecological effects. Increased human ignitions at the wildland–urban interface (WUI) have recently gained attention, but fire activity and risk are typically estimated using only biophysical variables. Our goal was to determine how humans influence fire in California and to examine whether this influence was linear, by relating contemporary (2000) and historic (1960–2000) fire data to both human and biophysical variables. Data for the human variables included fine‐resolution maps of the WUI produced using housing density and land cover data. Interface WUI, where development abuts wildland vegetation, was differentiated from intermix WUI, where development intermingles with wildland vegetation. Additional explanatory variables included distance to WUI, population density, road density, vegetation type, and ecoregion. All data were summarized at the county level and analyzed using bivariate and multiple regression methods. We found highly significant relationships between humans and fire on the contemporary landscape, and our models explained fire frequency (R2 = 0.72) better than area burned (R2 = 0.50). Population density, intermix WUI, and distance to WUI explained the most variability in fire frequency, suggesting that the spatial pattern of development may be an important variable to consider when estimating fire risk. We found nonlinear effects such that fire frequency and area burned were highest at intermediate levels of human activity, but declined beyond certain thresholds. Human activities also explained change in fire frequency and area burned (1960–2000), but our models had greater explanatory power during the years 1960–1980, when there was more dramatic change in fire frequency. Understanding wildfire as a function of the spatial arrangement of ignitions and fuels on the landscape, in addition to nonlinear relationships, will be important to fire managers and conservation planners because fire risk may be related to specific levels of housing density that can be accounted for in land use planning. With more fires occurring in close proximity to human infrastructure, there may also be devastating ecological impacts if development continues to grow farther into wildland vegetation.”
Citation: Syphard, A. D., Radeloff, V. C., Keeley, J. E., Hawbaker, T. J., Clayton, M. K., Stewart, S. I. and Hammer, R. B. (2007), HUMAN INFLUENCE ON CALIFORNIA FIRE REGIMES. Ecological Applications, 17: 1388-1402. doi:10.1890/06-1128.1.

Warming and Earlier Spring Increase Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity (Westerling et al. 2006) [FULL TEXT]
Abstract: “Western United States forest wildfire activity is widely thought to have increased in recent decades, yet neither the extent of recent changes nor the degree to which climate may be driving regional changes in wildfire has been systematically documented. Much of the public and scientific discussion of changes in western United States wildfire has focused instead on the effects of 19th- and 20th-century land-use history. We compiled a comprehensive database of large wildfires in western United States forests since 1970 and compared it with hydroclimatic and land-surface data. Here, we show that large wildfire activity increased suddenly and markedly in the mid-1980s, with higher large-wildfire frequency, longer wildfire durations, and longer wildfire seasons. The greatest increases occurred in mid-elevation, Northern Rockies forests, where land-use histories have relatively little effect on fire risks and are strongly associated with increased spring and summer temperatures and an earlier spring snowmelt.”
Citation: A. L. Westerling, H. G. Hidalgo, D. R. Cayan, T. W. Swetnam, Science 18 Aug 2006: Vol. 313, Issue 5789, pp. 940-943, DOI: 10.1126/science.1128834.

Climate change projected fire weather sensitivity: California Santa Ana wind occurrence (Miller and Schlegel, 2006) [FULL TEXT]
Abstract: “A new method based on global climate model pressure gradients was developed for identifying coastal high‐wind fire weather conditions, such as the Santa Ana Occurrence (SAO). Application of this method for determining southern California Santa Ana wind occurrence resulted in a good correlation between derived large‐scale SAOs and observed offshore winds during periods of low humidity. The projected change in the number of SAOs was analyzed using two global climate models, one a low temperature sensitivity and the other a middle‐temperature sensitivity, both forced with low and high emission scenarios, for three future time periods. This initial analysis shows consistent shifts in SAO events from earlier (September–October) to later (November–December) in the season, suggesting that SAOs may significantly increase the extent of California coastal areas burned by wildfires, loss of life, and property.”
Citation: Spracklen, D. V., L. J. Mickley, J. A. Logan, R. C. Hudman, R. Yevich, M. D. Flannigan, and A. L. Westerling (2009), Impacts of climate change from 2000 to 2050 on wildfire activity and carbonaceous aerosol concentrations in the western United States, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D20301, doi: 10.1029/2008JD010966.

The Impact of Climate Change on Wildfire Severity: A Regional Forecast for Northern California (Fried et al. 2004) [FULL TEXT]
Abstract: “We estimated the impact of climatic change on wildland fire and suppression effectiveness in northern California by linking general circulation model output to local weather and fire records and projecting fire outcomes with an initial-attack suppression model. The warmer and windier conditions corresponding to a 2 × CO2 climate scenario produced fires that burned more intensely and spread faster in most locations. Despite enhancement of fire suppression efforts, the number of escaped fires (those exceeding initial containment limits) increased 51% in the south San Francisco Bay area, 125% in the Sierra Nevada, and did not change on the north coast. Changes in area burned by contained fires were 41%, 41% and –8%, respectively. When interpolated to most of northern California’s wildlands, these results translate to an average annual increase of 114 escapes (a doubling of the current frequency) and an additional 5,000 hectares (a 50% increase) burned by contained fires. On average, the fire return intervals in grass and brush vegetation types were cut in half. The estimates reported represent a minimum expected change, or best-case forecast. In addition to the increased suppression costs and economic damages, changes in fire severity of this magnitude would have widespread impacts on vegetation distribution, forest condition, and carbon storage, and greatly increase the risk to property, natural resources and human life.”
Citation: Fried, J.S., Torn, M.S. & Mills, E. Climatic Change (2004) 64: 169. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:CLIM.0000024667.89579.ed.

Climate and Wildfire in the Western United States (Westerling et al. 2003) [FULL TEXT]
Abstract: “A 21-yr gridded monthly fire-starts and acres-burned dataset from U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs fire reports recreates the seasonality and interannual variability of wild fire in the western United States. Despite pervasive human influence in western fire regimes, it is striking how strongly these data reveal a fire season responding to variations in climate. Correlating anomalous wildfire frequency and extent with the Palmer Drought Severity Index illustrates the importance of prior and accumulated precipitation anomalies for future wildfire season severity. This link to antecedent seasons’ moisture conditions varies widely with differences in predominant fuel type. Furthermore, these data demonstrate that the relationship between wildfire season severity and observed moisture anomalies from antecedent seasons is strong enough to forecast fire season severity at lead times of one season to a year in advance.”
Citation: Westerling, A.L., A. Gershunov, T.J. Brown, D.R. Cayan, and M.D. Dettinger, 2003: Climate and Wildfire in the Western United States. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 84, 595–604, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-84-5-595.

Climate change effects on vegetation distribution, carbon, and fire in California (Lenihan et al. 2003) [FULL TEXT]
Abstract: “The objective of this study was to dynamically simulate the response of vegetation distribution, carbon, and fire to the historical climate and to two contrasting scenarios of climate change in California. The results of the simulations for the historical climate compared favorably to independent estimates and observations, but validation of the results was complicated by the lack of land use effects in the model. The response to increasing temperatures under both scenarios was characterized by a shift in dominance from needle‐leaved to broad‐leaved life‐forms and by increases in vegetation productivity, especially in the relatively cool and mesic regions of the state. The simulated response to changes in precipitation were complex, involving not only the effect of changes in soil moisture on vegetation productivity, but also changes in tree–grass competition mediated by fire. Summer months were warmer and persistently dry under both scenarios, so the trends in simulated fire area under both scenarios were primarily a response to changes in vegetation biomass. Total ecosystem carbon increased under both climate scenarios, but the proportions allocated to the wood and grass carbon pools differed. The results of the simulations underscore the potentially large impact of climate change on California ecosystems, and the need for further use and development of dynamic vegetation models using various ensembles of climate change scenarios.”
Citation: Lenihan, J. M., Drapek, R. , Bachelet, D. and Neilson, R. P. (2003), CLIMATE CHANGE EFFECTS ON VEGETATION DISTRIBUTION, CARBON, AND FIRE IN CALIFORNIA. Ecological Applications, 13: 1667-1681. doi:10.1890/025295.