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Research Overview
Our knowledge of how and why coast redwood changes over time results from a number of targeted research projects. Some recent efforts are described below.
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Fuels in North Coast Redwood Forests
Research by Brad Graham and Morgan Varner of Humboldt State University is characterizing fuels across a number of old growth coast redwood forests including the Redwood Experimental Forest, Jedediah Smith State Park, Prairie Creek State Park and Humboldt Redwoods State Park. They provide the first broad-scale assessment of coarse woody fuel that has been conducted in the old-growth coast redwood forest. More...
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Fire and Vegetation Dynamics in Headwaters Forest Reserve
Greg Jennings (US Bureau of Land Management) and Steve Norman (US Forest Service) document the last few centuries of disturbance and vegetation change within this little understood Reserve. They combine fire history from fire scars, age data from Douglas fir cores and 300 vegetation plots. Prior to 1850, this area burned less often than Humboldt Redwoods State Park, to the southwest, probably because fires here were more strongly regulated by lightning ignitions rather than people. With the arrival of loggers in the late 1800s, fires became more common.
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Human and Climate Influences on Fire Regimes in a Humid Northern Coast Redwood Forest (Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park)
Research in this northern, humid forest by Steve Norman reveals an extraordinary fire history. Long thought to burn only every few centuries, this research suggests frequencies similar to forests much farther south. This pattern is not explained by the climate, but by the intensive use of the area by the native Tolowa.
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Historical Fire Regimes Across Upland Prairie and Forested Sites; Redwood National Park
Research conducted by Steve Norman and Leonel Arguello (Redwood National and State Parks) indicates that fire was frequent in both prairie edge and interior forests. Insights from this research will help Park managers understand how they can better achieve forest restoration goals in these upland forests, the highest-elevation redwood forests that exist. More...
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Fire History in the Canoe Creek Watershed
Fire history research conducted following the extensive 2003 Canoe fire indicates that fires burned with similar frequency in riparian areas and uplands and that fire regimes did not change much with the arrival of Euro-Americans. Long-sustained frequent fire and the dryer climate here than to the north suggests that there may be important consequences of fire exclusion here, as is also likely in more southern redwood forests. More...
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Initiation and Development of Fire Cavities in Coast Redwood
In this study, Steve Norman describes how fire cavities relate to vegetation structure and topography and how they can be used to rapidly infer a site's fire history. Cavities are best developed on mid and large trees and on sites that burned hotter and/or more frequently in the past. More...
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Native American Fire Use in Coast Redwood Forests
Numerous Indian tribes inhabited the redwood forest in 1850, and ethnographic and historical evidence from tree rings explains how and why they modified their redwood environment. More...
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The Effects of Climate Variation on Coast Redwood Vegetation and Fire Risk
During the fire season, coastal fog-stratus reduces evapotranspiration and fire risk, yet it varies year to year in response to broad scale climate variation. This study compares the pattern of coastal fog probabilities and vegetation from Monterey to the Oregon border. More...
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