Week 8: Station Fire

Los Angeles County Station Fire

The Los Angeles County Station Fire occurred in the Angeles National Forest towards the end of August through October 2009.² Its burn area affected mostly Shrub, Conifer Forest, Hardwood Forest, Hardwood Woodland, and Urban and Agricultural land use: a variety of ecosystems were affected. And this large-scale fire gave birth to a crippled environment. A year after the fire and mitigation approaches can and should be taken to guide ecological growth in the right direction.

Angeles National Forest is largely untouched by urbanization but still within the grasps of human activities. Much of the burn area consisted of Shrub, then Conifer Forest. Forest fires are often seen as a bad thing but in reality, forest fires are healthy when occurring in small and patchy areas. In many mixed-conifer forests, fire is a keystone process promoting biodiversity by allowing varying successional species to establish and rare fire-seed trees to germinate.³ The Vegetation Map shows that some of the land burned by the fire was “Conifer Forest.” Other vegetation types affected were Hardwood Forest, and Hardwood Woodland. Each of these differing types of vegetation housed differing ecosystems and various species. 

The continuous burning of Station Fire not only destroyed the ecosystems present, but had many after-effects. This powerful fire created “competition-free” space for invasive species to establish themselves, altering the natural regime and decreasing biodiversity.⁴ The main after-effects of Station Fire were its topographical effects. Smoke still seen after the fire was said to have been put out indicated that the root systems of plants were burning⁶ and the strong interlocking mechanisms of these root systems that provided the necessary ecological service of anchoring the ground, no longer did.⁷ The Station Fire perimeters map shown over a hillshade model and the Slope Map show that the fire took place on steep slopes and crept up mountains. The effects of this, combined with barren land and wet conditions threatened many Californians with mudslides or landslides.⁸ The lack of anchoring vegetation on a steep slope compounded with a wet season, resulted with mudslides and landslides.

As the Station Fire Burn area recovers it is important to maintain and guide its growth in the proper direction. As the new species are setting in and as the ecosystem is recovering and growing it is important to learn from past mistakes and effectively use fuel reduction techniques. According to Potts et, al., fuel reduction strategies are important in shrubland community dynamics; and, as the land use map shows, a great majority of the burn area from Station Fire was “Shrub.” Both prescribed fires and mastication can help improve the biodiversity of the region.⁸ As the burn area is recovering it is important to guide its ecological growth in the proper direction and to adapt good forest management strategies.

The Station Fire was one of the largest wildfires in modern California history. It destroyed various types of vegetation and threatened a few urban areas. But its after-effects on the environment and on humans were even greater. It left open many opportunities for invasive species and left the land barren devoid of any anchoring system, resulting in many mudslides and landslides in the area during the rainy season. A year after the fire, and now is the time to implement improved forest management strategies and avoid the mistakes of the past.

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Bibliography 
² (September 31, 2009) Station fire doubles in size. Daily News Los Angeles. Retrieved from http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_13239035

³ School, A. E.; Taylor, A. H. (2010) Fire regimes, forest change, and self-organization in an old-growth mixed-conifer forest, Yosemite National Park, USA. Ecological Applications. 20(2) 362-380

⁴ Cavallers, L; Raffaele, E. (2010) Fire enhances the ‘competition-free’ space of an invader shrub: Rosa rubiginosa in northwestern Patagonia. Biological Invasions, 12(10) 3395-3404

⁶ Holmes, B. (November 10, 2009) The station fire is out – or is it?. Los Angeles Times.  Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/10/local/me-station-fire10

⁷ Levinton, J. S. Marine Biology: Function, Biodiversity, Ecology (Oxford University Press, ed 3, 2009) p 175 – 176

⁸ Potts, J. B.; Marino, E.; Stephens, S. L. (2010) Chaparral scrub recovery after fuel reduction: a comparison of prescribed fire and mastication techniques. Plant Ecology, 210(2) 305-315