Wildfire

Smoke From Megafires Puts Orchard Trees at Risk

Long-term smoke exposure from massive wildfires lowers the energy reserves of orchard trees and can cut their nut production by half, researchers at the University of California, Davis, found. The smoke can affect trees for months after a megafire, depressing their bloom and the next season’s harvest. This finding reveals a new danger from wildfires that could affect plant health in both agricultural and natural environments.

Nature Plants published the study today (Oct. 2).

Wildfire Smoke Reached 99% of U.S. Lakes in 2019-2021

Where there’s smoke, there’s not necessarily fire.

Wildfire smoke, sometimes drifting from hundreds of miles away, touched nearly every lake in North America for at least one day per year from 2019 to 2021, according to a study from the University of California, Davis. 

Smoke Covered 70% of California During Biggest Wildfire Years

As much as 70% of California was covered by wildfire smoke during parts of 2020 and 2021, according to a study from the University of California, Davis. The study, published today in the journal Communications: Earth & Environment, combined lake-based sensors with satellite imagery to find that maximum smoke cover has increased by about 116,000 square miles since 2006.

Car Fumes, Weeds Pose Double Whammy for Fire-Loving Native Plants

Springtime brings native wildflowers to bloom in the Santa Monica Mountains, northwest of Los Angeles. These beauties provide food for insects, maintain healthy soil and filter water seeping into the ground — in addition to offering breathtaking displays of color. 

They’re also good at surviving after wildfire, having adapted to it through millennia. But new research shows wildflowers that usually would burst back after a blaze and a good rain are losing out to the long-standing, double threat of city smog and nonnative weeds.

Reforms Needed to Expand Prescribed Burns

Prescribed fire, which mimics natural fire regimes, can help improve forest health and reduce the likelihood of catastrophic wildfire. But this management tool is underused in the fire-prone U.S. West and Baja California, Mexico, due to several barriers. 

A paper from the University of California, Davis, pinpoints those obstacles and suggests four key strategies that policymakers and land managers can take to get more “good fire” on the ground in North America’s fire-adapted ecosystems. The paper also provides examples of how people are surmounting some of these obstacles.

Understanding How to Manage Wildfire with Fire

On a sunny day in June, about 30 acres of land tucked along rolling hills just north of Capay were set on fire. Wearing a bright yellow, long sleeve shirt, long pants, leather gloves, hard hat and heavy-duty goggles, UC Davis Assistant Professor Emily Schlickman participated in her first prescribed burn, a planned and controlled fire that aims to help reduce wildfire risk.