Subject Guide : Fire

This month's library reading guide is all about wildfire, fire ecology, and the sustainable management of our forests. You can read it below, and to show you how topical it is, the gusty dry winds you're feeling outside here in the Bay Area have prompted fire warnings through Saturday night. Read about that here.



Now the reading guide:

Fire: Fire Ecology and Forest Sustainability

California leads the nation in fire losses. So far this year, the state has already faced a destructive fire season with approximately 2,100 fires burning more than 1.2 million acres, and conditions remain potentially catastrophic until the October rains arrive. Between 1997 and 2007, wildfires in California burned more than 8,500 square miles. Overall, 37 million acres, roughly 48 percent of the state's land base, face high, very high, or extreme fire threats. The accumulated effect is an ecological crisis wreaking havoc on California wildlife biodiversity and endangering watersheds.

The risks are not expected to decline anytime soon. The wildfire season of the western United States has increased by 78 days in the past three decades, and climate scientists predict it will continue to get longer as temperatures rise and summers become drier. The growing frequency, intensity, and size of these fires are also a result of a complex set of causes including 70 years of fire suppression and patterns of land development which have more and more people living and working near fire prone areas. Yet fire also plays a significant role in the shaping of forest ecosystems. Some species are vulnerable to fires, others are resistant, and still others depend on fires to survive or reproduce. The health of many forests depends on fire, but how can it be responsibly reintroduced in the context of a warming climate? These books look at the relationship between fire and forests, the effects of human society on this relationship, and propose ways to use our developing understanding of fire ecology to manage our forests more sustainably in the future.

George Wuerthner. Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2006. (Natural Environment - Reference)

This collection published by the Foundation for Deep Ecology surveys how wildfire policies and practices such as fire suppression, logging of old-growth trees, and expanding development in the wildland-urban interface have contributed to the ecological decline of our forests and to the growing costs of and threats posed by wildfire. The essays present a variety of ecological, economic, social, and political perspectives on alternatives to these harmful policies of the past, emphasizing that fire needs to be understood as a natural part of the forest ecosystem and a vital component of forest renewal. It includes a 50 page photo essay showing over time the role of fire in shaping and rejuvenating forest landscapes. Also available is an abridged collection of the essays without the photographs called The Wildfire Reader.

Stephen F. Arno and Carl E. Fielder. Mimicking Nature's Fire: Restoring Fire-Prone Forests in the West. Washington, DC: 2005. (Natural Environment)

Management in the western forests has failed to account for the historical role of fire, leading to ecological deterioration and increasing wildfire hazards. Evaluating a number of restoration projects in different forest types with contrasting management goals, the authors of this book advocate a program of restoration forestry - restoring features of fire-prone or fire-dependent forests through policies that mimic the effects of historical fires. It is a process that provides for the ecological sustainability of the forest and the resources and amenity values important to humans while reducing potential damage from wildfires, insects, and disease.

Thomas R. Vale, ed. Fire, Native Peoples, and the Natural Landscape. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002 (California & the West)

There is no doubt that we have very different forests than those encountered by the European settlers, in large measure due to fire suppression activities. But to what extent did Native Americans in pre-European times use fire as a tool to shape the landscape of the American West? The biogeographers and landscape ecologists in this collection examine the balance between the natural and cultural histories of fire in the western United States, developing a complex picture of this prehistoric ecology with implications for policies involving the management of natural areas today.

Alianor True, ed. Wildfire: A Reader. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2001. (General Interest)

This collection of stories and essays documents the shifting thinking about and attitudes toward wildfire in North America. From Native American origin myths to the pioneering ecological works of John Muir and Aldo Leopold to the contemporary understandings of naturalists and firefighters, the selections illuminate the changing relationship between fire and the natural and cultural landscapes. Once considered a destructive force to be avoided or suppressed, today there is a greater understanding of the beneficial effects and rightful place of fire in the environment.

Elliott A. Norse. Ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest. Washington, DC: Island Press, 1990. (Natural Environment)

Ancient forests have their own unique characteristics and issues. The cycles of their ecosystems can operate on scales of thousands of years, and while fires are infrequent, they have still shaped the lives of these forests. Fire suppression has increased the risk of catastrophic fires, and this activity is only one of the many pressures that humanity has placed on these forests, putting their future at risk. Elliott Norse provides a comprehensive look at the lives of these forests and details sustainable management policies that would preserve them while providing for the economic livelihood of the region.

Reed F. Noss, ed. The Redwood Forest: History, Ecology, and Conservation of the Coast Redwoods. Washington, DC: 2000. (California & the West)

The Save-the-Redwoods League is a national nonprofit conservation organization founded in 1918 to protect the redwood of California, to foster a better understanding of the value of America's primeval forests, and to support conservation of forests. This work describes the scientific basis for the League's current Master Plan for the Redwoods, a set of long-range, multi-layered forest preservation policies. Drawing on recent scientific findings, advances in comptuer technology, and need assessment techniques, it presents the functioning of redwood forests in a new light.

Constance Best and Laurie A. Wayburn. America's Private Forests. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2001. (Natural Environment)

While public forest management is undoubtedly significant, 58% of the forests in this country are privately owned, and their viability is threatened by population growth, development, fragmentation, as well as historic fire suppression policies. The authors of this book are the co-founders of The Pacific Forest Trust, a conservation organization dedicated to enhancing, restoring, and preserving private, productive forestland, with a primary focus in the Pacific Northwest. The Trust believes that maintaining long-term, ecologically based productivity is the key to forest preservation, and this work offers recommendations for enhancing the conservation, restoration, and sustainable management of private forestland.

David B. Lindenmayer and Jerry F. Franklin, eds. Towards Forest Sustainability. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2003

Worldwide, there are increasing societal demands for the management of stable or declining forests so as to sustain biological diversity and higher levels of ecological services as well as the production of commodities. This collection of essays focuses on that transition to the ecologically sustainable management of forests in the developed temperate regions of the world from the perspective of forest ecologists and managers in the United States, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Australia, and New Zealand. They describe the changes that have taken place, emphasizing what has worked, what hasn't, and the lessons they have learned. The editors of this volume also co-wrote Conserving Forest Biodiversity, a detailed and comprehensive review of biodiversity and forest management strategies.