[PCA] Reduce Western fires -- replant the native understory!

[Craig Dremann]

Dear Larry and All,

Thanks for your note on the southern California fires.  

The removal of the perennial native grasses in southern California,
starting in 1769, has greatly increased the densities of the shrubs in
the "chaparral" areas, so that they are able to carry fire better.  

This is an issue that I haven't seen discussed yet, about the fires.  

Originally the Southern California coastal "chaparral" ecosystem was
only about a 30-40% shrub cover.  The other 60-70% of the ecosystem were
low-growing (about 6"-15" tall) perennial grasses and perennial
herbaceous plants between the shrubs, that stayed green all year long,
and were very fire-resistant.

You can see a photo of California's originally most widespread native
grasses, the Purple Needlegrass, "Stipa" or Nassella pulchra, that is
also pictured on the California flag below the Grizzly Bear, at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/stipa.1.JPG

Unfortunately the 100-200 years of grazing in California, has almost
completely removed the 100 species of native grasses and hundreds of
species of herbaceous native perennials that formerly grew, as our
understory below 3,000 ft. elevation.

Removal of the native understory helped to greatly increase fire danger,
since in most places, either annual exotic grasses filled in those
spaces, or the flammable shrubs have grown together as a solid mass.

You can see Dr. Humphrey's photos of the conversion within less than 100
years, of perennial native western grasslands to shrublands at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/desertgrass.html 

A good place to start, might be a Native Vegetation Understory Inventory
every 10 years, to see what we have left of our perennial native
understory.  

You can see the beginnings of an inventory for 1997, a measuring of the
native understory that is left of several of the Western states, at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/megatransect.html

As long as our lands in the Western States are missing their original
native understory, that land is extremely vulnerable to both weed
infestations and abnormal fires.

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann, Redwood City, CA (650) 325-7333