Blodgett Forest Research Station at Berkeley Forests

"Looking ahead, we need to act upon the work nature has provided through the 2020 fires and earlier fires to correct for climate shifts, fuels accumulation, and a deficit of fire." Don Hankins is a pyrogeographer and professor at California State University Chico, and as a Plains Miwok traditional cultural practitioner he has a great depth of knowledge when it comes to managing California's landscapes and utilizing burning effectively. From chaparral to oak woodlands to conif...er - Don has burned in it all! This piece from Don discusses Indigenous land management and the role we can all play in increasing intentional burning. By "reading the landscape" properly and burning in the right fuel types at the right times we can have the desired outcomes, especially for native species, with minimal prep and resources needed. "Frequent burns (e.g., two to five years) at the right time of the season can increase cover of native species, many of which are culturally significant." See more

Forestry Camp is a cherished tradition and experience for Berkeley forestry students held each year at Baker Forest near Quincy. Since 1915 it has been held every year, with the exception of being canceled for both World Wars. This summer Berkeley Forests staff adapted to make it possible for the camp to still happen in a safe, socially-distanced manner with two lucky students! https://nature.berkeley.edu/breakthr//forestry-camp-adapts

Will 2021 be the year California properly invests in wildfire prevention and makes more funding available for fuels treatments, prescribed burning, and retrofitting homes with fire-resistant materials? A diverse coalition representing foresters, ranchers, environmental groups, and businesses are calling on the state to invest $1.5 billion in wildfire prevention and mitigation.

Happy Holidays from Blodgett! Wishing you all safety and happiness in the new year - surrounded by lots of good trees and healthy forests. Check out the Blodgett tree lit up in Georgetown! #happyholidays #blodgettforest #forestmanagement ... #researchforest @ Blodgett Research Station at Berkeley Forests See more

’Tis the season for a good bonfire! Or forty? Recently we were able to burn these piles at the Grouse Ridge Berkeley Forests property in the Lake Spaulding area. With well-structured, nicely dried out piles, snow on the ground and snow coming later that day, we had solid pile burning conditions and good consumption (peep that last pile photo). Creating and burning these piles was one small piece of the Adaptive Management Experiment (AMEX), a collaborative research projec...t designed to track long-term climate change impacts in California’s Sierra Nevada mixed conifer forests and examine a range of approaches to managing stressed forests. There are four treatment designations within the study: resilience, resistance, transition, and untreated controls. The resilience treatments mimic forest structure that would occur under Sierra Nevada’s historic fire regime, creating a patchy matrix with high diversity. The resistance treatments are more focused on decreasing fuel loading and ladder fuels and thin to a much lower basal area. The gaps you see here were created as part of the transition treatments, which represent the scenario where resistance and resilience treatments are not effective and active management is required to help the forest adapt to climate change. Utilizing group selection silviculture, the basal area of the matrix was reduced and canopy gaps ranging from .25 to 1 acre were created to cover 10% of the transition treatment area. Burning these piles created from the slash and cut material is the last step in site preparation so that replanting can occur next spring. These openings will be reforested using seeds from a range of species and provenances (seed sources) to examine which populations may be better adapted to future climate conditions. The AMEX project is a long-term study which will also produce applicable findings in the near future and has a broad reach of collaborators and contributors. Replications are occurring at Cal Fire and USFS properties. Head to the link in bio to find out more! #pileburning #researchforest #forestmanagement #climateresiliency #collaborativeresearch #forestry #blodgettforest @ Nevada County, California See more

When considering costs of fuels treatments and wildfire prevention strategies, we often weigh them against suppression and reforestation costs. However, there are many indirect costs of wildfires and smoke exposure which cannot be ignored, including significant health care expenses.

In late September a bill was introduced to the federal legislature that would help to incentivize and create funding for prescribed burns. This short article outlines what it could accomplish and potential obstacles it may face. Increased funding and leadership plays a big role in expanding capacity for partnerships throughout the state to make more controlled burns happen. "Those small bite-sized solutions we're seeing popping up around the state are actually going to be the solution," says Lenya Quinn-Davidson, a UC fire and forest advisor. "That's going to have to be paired with funding and policy change at the federal and state level." https://www.capradio.org//federal-bill-could-increase-pr/

Recent studies have shown that as many as 90% of building ignitions in the U.S. are caused by ember. Defensible space is important to protecting your home from wildfire - but home hardening and working to prevent possible ignition from wind-driven embers may be even more critical.

This piece provides a great overview of the complex issues we are currently facing when it comes to forest management and wildfires, and possible solutions to address these issues on an effective scale.

UC Agriculture & Natural Resources has just released a new guide for reforestation in California available for free download! This peer-reviewed publication is designed to aid landowners in successfully reforesting after wildfire, and this pre-publication version was made available due to the urgency of the wildfire situation in California currently. "Reforestation Practices for Conifers in California" is a practical manual to help create sustainable CA forests. "The primary ...takeaway from this book is that the most successful reforestation happens if planning begins as soon as the flames die down," says Dr. Bill Stewart, Co-Director of Berkeley Forests. Check it out at the links below! http://www.fvmc.org//Reforestation_Manual_Low_Resolution.p http://www.fvmc.org/

In the past few years we have seen wildfire behavior enter an entirely new regime. "Not only is the size and severity increasing, but the nature of fire is changing," says fire-science researcher David Saah. These mass fires due to accumulation of wildland fuels bear a shocking resemblance to the firestorms of World War II. Says Saah of satellite images of the Creek Fire, "It looks like a nuclear bomb went off." Researchers at Blodgett and elsewhere are racing the clock to create new models that adequately represent mass fire and plume-driven fires like the Carr Fire or Creek Fire. Check out this article for more background and a look at the range of research being performed to try to stay ahead of this phenomenon.

Today is Indigenous Peoples Day. As a research forest Blodgett is working to increase awareness and acceptance of sustainable practices such as intentional burning, which Native populations utilized for centuries to cultivate resilient and diverse forests. At Blodgett we are continually working to involve more local tribes in our burning process and forest management actions. Blodgett Forest sits on the divide between Nisenan and Washoe land. Despite the injustice they’ve ...faced these tribes are resilient and their populations persist today. Over the past century, as a state and country we have severely mismanaged California’s resources and have drastically changed the landscape, but by working to incorporate Indigenous knowledge we can hope to recover healthy ecosystems. Today is Indigenous Peoples Day, but it should not be the only day we consider the Native tribes in our area. It should not be the only time we consider how we are interacting with the land and what it means for future generations. We are on Native land everyday. map from native-land.ca @ Blodgett Research Station at Berkeley Forests See more

In the past few months we have witnessed the ancient conifer and oak forests of California's North Coast burning as never before. Devastation of our redwood forests hasn't previously occurred at this scale, and it is the result of drought, heat waves, dissipating fog, and mismanagement that has led to accumulation of fuels. Lenya Quinn-Davidson, a fire specialist with the University of California Cooperative Extension, lives and works in the North Coast forests. "They are suf...fering from the same things that the rest of the state forests are, they are poorly managed and have fuels buildup." Although it can feel overwhelming, there is optimism that this new fire regime - 3.2 million acres burned in one month - will inspire increased prevention work. Cal Fire Division Chief Angela Bernheisel says, "My hope is that this fire and the new awareness that people have of the risk that is out there will actually move people to action. There’s a big backlog of work to do."

Hi everyone! My name is Kestrel and I am an AmeriCorps Fellow working at Blodgett Forest Research Station through the GrizzlyCorps program. Blodgett has a ton of awesome projects going on that I will be working to share with you. I will be running their social media throughout my term so please reach out if you have questions or if there is specific content you would like to see! Starting next week I will be introducing the rest of the amazing folks here at Blodgett so stay... tuned! #blodgettforest #forestmanagement #forestry #researchforest #californiavolunteers @ Blodgett Research Station at Berkeley Forests See more

Climate change is real. But how much is it to blame for the massive, record-setting fires burning throughout the West right now? According to UC Berkeley fire science professor and Co-Director of Berkeley Forests Scott Stephens, "Less than 50%. Maybe a third." While some of the fault can be put on climate change, the rest comes down to decades of mismanagement and fire suppression. The Baja mountain range in Mexico "can be used as a reference to what the drier portions of ...forests in the Sierra Nevada may have looked like without a history of extensive logging and fire suppression." Check out this article to read more about how studying this mountain range can show us what a large role management and forest use has played in creating this crisis, and steps we can take to mitigate it. Thank you to Forest Research and Outreach, University of California for sharing!

We're hiring (for real this time)! Blodgett Forest and the Berkeley Forests are hiring a full-time Facility Maintenance and Heavy Equipment Operator position! Apply online at jobs.berkeley.edu.

Seems like every year we find ourselves scrambling to get all our plots in ahead of harvesting. Good thing we have the amazing @york.jen @apholtz and Aidan to help get it done! #blodgettforest #forestinventory #research #forestmanagement #azaleasfordays

Sometimes as a forester you get to spend the afternoon flagging through walls of blackberry trying not to lose it, on the plus side you get all the mental health snack breaks you can handle! #fieldwork #forestry #forestmanagement #jobperks #blodgettforest