Announcing the 2008 Second Edition of Fire, Chaparral and Survival in Southern California
This is the best book available that describes in detail California's most extensive plant community, the chaparral! The book not only provides the basics of chaparral natural history, but also how wildfires are fought, what we have learned about them, and why it is important to reconnect with one's surroundings.The new Second Edition includes:
1. A new 16 page introduction chapter entitled "Becoming a Chaparralian." This chapter provides new perspectives on fire and the important role chaparral and nature can play in creating a better world.
2. Using lessons learned during the 2007 Southern California wildfires, Chapter 4 has been updated to better explain why it is so important to examine the entire fire environment rather than just focusing on vegetation.
3. A thoroughly updated review on what to do after a fire with a new contribution by Mike Evans, co-owner of the Tree of Life native plant nursery.
4. All photographs have been rescanned to bring out their true, vivid colors.
5. Many new photographs including landscape and 64 species identification shots.
6. Two new detailed fire perimeter maps for southern California that show all the fires in the region since 1900, including the 2007 fires.
7. A remarkable new photograph and identification of one of the most beautiful creatures ever to fly within the chaparral.
Fire, Chaparral, and Survival in Southern California is an essential book for anyone living in California because it explains why it is important to understand the region's natural environment as well as how best to prepare for the next wildfire.
Reference: Halsey, R.W. 2008. Fire, Chaparral, and Survival in Southern California. Second Edition. Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, California. 232 p.
or you can purchase the book from Amazon.com by clicking the button to the right.
Table of Contents
Becoming a Chaparralian
Chapter 1: Chaparral, the Unknown Wilderness
Chapter 2: When the Fire Came With special contributions by: Susan Conniry, Michael Wangler, Michael Klein, Bill Howell.
Chapter 3: Fire and Firefighters With special contributions by: Two veteran firefighters, Chris Blaylock.
Color Photo Section
Chapter 4: Getting Ready for the Next One With special contributions by: Kurt Schasker, Klaus Radtke.
Chapter 5: After the Fire With special contributions by: Wayne Spencer, Klaus Radtke, Mike Evans.
Chapter 6: Learning From Fires With special contributions by: Max A. Moritz, Marti Witter and Robert Taylor, Jon E. Keeley and CJ Fotheringham.
Chapter 7: The Next 100 years
Chapter 8: The Essential 64 Plants and Animals of Southern California Chaparral
Appendix I: Nature’s Value by Anne S. Fege.
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In addition, you can look forward to the publication of another book focusing on the importance of reconnecting with the natural environment entitled, Secrets of the Chaparral.
I'll keep you posted here.
In the meantime (after you order your own personal copy) enjoy the excerpts below from Fire, Chaparral, and Survival in Southern California...
BOOK REVIEW
A biologist challenges common wisdom in 'Fire, Chaparral, and Survival in Southern California'
Reviewed by Terry Rodgers February 6, 2005
Biologist and fire ecologist Richard W. Halsey sees ample evidence that Southern Californians simply don't get it.
Surrounded by a highly flammable chaparral landscape, we insist on building housing in inappropriate locations that are impossible to defend against wildfires. When the inevitable happens, we expect firefighters to accomplish the impossible by saving every structure, no matter how stupidly constructed. In the fire's aftermath, there's a clamor for more equipment, more choppers, more air tankers.
The public believes chaparral wildfires whipped up by Santa Ana winds can be easily subdued by a bigger, better-equipped army of firefighters. Using tragedy to push a political agenda, some try to blame the fires' destruction on the chaparral itself and those who favor open space conservation.
In "Fire, Chaparral, and Survival in Southern California," Halsey directly challenges the common wisdom that has fostered the pattern of tail-chasing after every wildfire disaster.
This is an interesting and important book that could dispel the public's misperceptions and improve public policy to minimize death and destruction from wildfires. Halsey forces the reader to rethink how mankind should live in Southern California's estimated 8.6 million acres of chaparral. He makes the case that much can be done through better land-use planning, improved building codes and a renewed vigilance on the part of homeowners.
"Past fire suppression practices or environmental regulations limiting vegetation treatments in wild spaces cannot be blamed for the wildfires we see today," he writes. "We must recognize fire will always be part of the California experience, with or without chaparral."
The initial chapters read like a chaparral-habitat field guide, before the book switches abruptly to Halsey's intriguing treatise on wildfire management, including lessons learned from the catastrophic wildfires of 2003.
The early chapters are worthwhile for amateur naturalists or natural history guides seeking a comprehensive understanding of chaparral ecology. Like the GoldenState's once-robust population of grizzly bears, native chaparral and its cousin habitat, coastal sage scrub, are being systematically eliminated. For too long, the beauty and utility of the chaparral have been underappreciated. These plant communities are crucial to a healthy watershed that deters erosion and provide habitat for wildlife.
While it's true that periodic fires are healthy for chaparral, humans have increased the frequency of wildfires. Such overburning allows non-native grasses and other plants to take over.
"Considering development, increased fire frequency and the possibility of continued drought conditions, the future (of chaparral) looks extremely difficult," Halsey writes.
Much of the book is a how-to manual for homeowners who wish to create a reasonable defense against wildfire. Halsey argues that, rather than rely on firefighters to come to their rescue, homeowners need to be more savvy about how they prepare for the fires. They can create "survivable spaces" with intelligent (not clear-cut) brush clearing along with on-site measures such as misters under vulnerable wooden eaves.
The author supports his theories with a collection of interviews and anecdotes of residents and firefighters who have first-hand experience battling wildfires.
"What had become clear after the 2003 firestorm is that people had become so unfamiliar with the environment in which they lived and so dependent on outside assistance that they had lost control of their own lives," he writes. "They had neglected to prepare for the inevitable."
Terry Rodgers is a staff writer for the San Diego Union-Tribune
RECONNECT
The intrinsic feature about rediscovering the wildness within is its simplicity and accessibility. Following the teachings of a modern day philosopher is redundant because the knowledge lies within your own mind. A distant trip to some far off place is unnecessary. As long as you can find a natural place uninterrupted by the rumblings of civilization, the location of one’s inspiration is unimportant. For those of us in southern California, the most common natural community is the chaparral. Like a coastal tide pool, desert, and forest, the chaparral has a unique collection of plant and animal populations intimately connected to their environment and each other. If given the opportunity, these missionaries from nature are willing teachers to help us reconnect with the wildness within. By watching them, distinguishing differences between each group, and learning the patterns they display, our senses become attuned again to the rhythms of nature; we become naturalists.
As naturalists, our mental gyroscopes attain a new balance that incorporates an understanding of life beyond the confines of human society and reconnects with the wilderness, our original home. After finding our way back, we are grounded again and are able to build the resiliency required to thrive within the outside world of civilization; for indeed, civilization remains an alien place for the progeny of ancient naturalists. However, repudiation of society is unnecessary to return home. All that is required is an appreciation of what the natural world can offer as our true domicile. When describing his own love of wilderness, John Muir made it clear that it, “was no solemn abjuration of the world”, but rather, “I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”
ANIMALS
Because of its density, uniform cover and nonexistent understory of herbaceous plants, the diversity of chaparral animal life is low when compared to a forest ecosystem. However, the animals that do call the chaparral their home are an interesting assortment of highly territorial survivors.
There are two in particular that a shrubland visitor will invariably notice, the sparrow-sized wrentit and the big-eared woodrat.
The wrentit (Chamaea fasciata) is one of the most homebound bird species in North America, restricting its movement to less than two acres (Fig. 1-11). Despite being visually secretive, both male and females sing all year round allowing their location to be pinpointed by sound, a descending whistle having the beat of bouncing ping-pong ball. Rarely is a mated pair found apart unless finding food for their young. At night the female sits in the nest and the male sleeps alone on a nearby perch. His call is often the last bird sound heard across the chaparral at dusk. When the offspring finally leave their nest, the parents once again share the evening roost. They snuggle up so tightly that it is difficult to distinguish two birds amongst the bundle of feathers...
Matilija Poppy (Romneya trichocalyx) in bloom
SEASONS
Do the amber colored leaves traditionally decorating the walls inside elementary classrooms accurately reflect what is happening outside during the months of autumn? Is fall really a time of red maple leaves and hibernation? Not in southern California. Since drought, not freezing snow determines our seasons, the transition from one to the other is more subtle. And with help from the garden hose and sprinklers, suburban dwellers can live in a green, springtime setting all year. But out in the chaparral, seasonal changes continue to pace the rhythm of life; a mediterranean melody with three notes instead of four; fall, spring, and six or more long months of drought.
Fall is subtle, lasting only a few short weeks in June, punctuating spring and drought. Marked by a brief yellowing of the hillsides as some of the leaves on shrubs like ceanothusand manzanita are discarded, fall prepares the chaparral for long months of desiccation ahead; scarcity of water demands conservation and springtime foliage becomes a liability by releasing too much moisture. Although autumn in the chaparral is more of a short interlude than a full season, it remains a critical component of the system’s life cycle. By mid-July, drought has settled in; growth slows to a crawl, cicadas buzz in the heat, and ceanothus seed capsules snap open in the dry air.
Usually in November, just when it seems as if life is about to shrivel up and disappear from lack of water, a hint of moisture arrives. The ground stays damp longer in the morning from lingering night time dew. Serious clouds begin to form. Finally, the first concentrated delivery of rain arrives and quenches the shrubland’s thirst. “Spring” has arrived. The traditional winter months become part of the chaparral’s season of growth.
So while much of the country is preparing for cold, the chaparral is emerging from its defensive posture. Bright green fingers of wild cucumber vines (Marah macrocarpus) crawl upon the ground, searching for something to grasp. Creamy bushrue flowers (Cneoridium dumosum), California’s own native citrus, create clumps of contrast to olivaceous hillsides. Ceanothus buds begin to swell, and will soon powder the chaparral with white or azure blossoms. Perhaps, instead of snowflakes and holly leaves, southern California classrooms in December should be decorated with boughs of red-berried toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia), scrub oak acorns, and sprigs of fragrant white sage (Salvia apiana). Such native decorations would be an excellent way to strengthen the connection children already have for nature and may help reawaken the same in the adults around them. One wonders how different the American view of the natural world would be if the Pilgrims had landed in San Pedro Bay instead of Plymouth...
HOW WE FIGHT BRUSH FIRES
“The Viejas fire in 01, the Gavilan fire in 02 and then again during the Cedar fire in 03. It’s always the same damn thing.”
Jim Hart, a veteran firefighter in San Diego County, leaned against his truck and shook his head. Soot was buried deeply into his skin and a cigarette hung from his hand like an old bandaged finger. He was taking a break after spending all night trying to keep his firefighters alive. He was one of the incident commanders coordinating suppression efforts on a fire raging in the local foothills. “The media, the politicians, they blame the fire service and lack of aircraft for the loss of homes. Every time. People don’t have a clue how fires are fought. They think if they’ve tended a campfire or watched brushfires from a lawn chair, they’re instant experts. Right.”
He looked at me with blood-shot, squinted eyes and took a long drag off his cigarette. I’d have liked to think he was just trying to imitate some Clint Eastwood character, but I could tell he really didn’t like me very much. I’m one of those reporters, one of those media people. I was there to interview him for a story I was writing. It wasn’t starting out very well.
Hart’s radio crackled some indecipherable emergency personnel speak the same time his cell phone started ringing. I stood there pretending to be occupied with my note pad.
“How old are you?” he barked after snapping his phone shut.
“Ah, 29.”
“Look, lets go sit down.”
We went over an area with picnic tables, or table. The others had burned the night before. Hart held his two hands up, joining them together by touching his thumbs and first fingers at their tips to form a triangle. “See this. It’s a triangle.” He stared at me waiting for some sheepish grin on my behalf. I didn’t. “First of all, you need to understand the basics about why fires behave the way they do. The Fire Triangle is one of the first things a young firefighter is exposed to in training for fighting chaparral fires. Most of my early training was related to understanding this kind of stuff, like depriving a fire of fuel by building fireline, or depriving it of oxygen by throwing dirt on it.”
“Yeah, I remember that in grade school. The fire department came over and taught us all that: fuel, oxygen, and heat. Deprive the fire any one of these and it can’t burn.” I felt somewhat excited about the memory, but Hart ignored my enthusiasm...
RETHINKING HOW WE LIVE WITH FIRE
Max Moritz
Fire has been an important and necessary ecological process in much of California for many thousands of years, and it will remain so. Wildfires, like other natural hazards on the landscapes we inhabit, are therefore phenomena we must learn to live with. After decades of suppressing wildfires, we now struggle to reintroduce them safely. At the most basic level, however, the current “fire problem” exists primarily because we have developed in ways and in locations that are vulnerable to this natural hazard. Fortunately, we have learned enough about floods and earthquakes to start incorporating them into our building guidelines and our urban planning. Unfortunately, we have been slow in making that leap with wildfire. Long-term droughts and changing climates appear even farther off in our collective consciousness, but they too may need to be accommodated eventually. Right now, we need to rethink how we live with fire.
Research about fire behavior and natural fire regimes should provide useful information for policy and management decisions. That linkage is part of what makes this line of work interesting. Research questions and findings, however, are typically put in terms of hypotheses and probabilities. Many scientists approach complex systems in terms of gradients and correlations and mechanisms. These concepts and terms are not always easy for the rest of the world to use in making decisions, but they are necessary for scientific work. In contrast, most people try to understand a situation or problem by categorizing things, by putting names on recognizable patterns or associations. In this attempt to reduce and classify, we often end up with simple models of how the world works. We tend toward discrete and “binary” choices (e.g., right versus wrong, us versus them), and we want one-size-fits-all solutions to our problems...
Corrections to the First Edition (2005) of Fire, Chaparral and Survival in Southern California
There weren't a lot but, alas, despite our best efforts a few typos slipped through. We fixed these in the second edition, but in the event you want to correct the first edition, here's the list.
Pg. ix, second paragraph, line 13. Replace west with “north” of Highway 52
Pg. 9, Fig. 1-6, all > should be changed to <
Pg. 45, second paragraph, last line, replace (#1) with “(#41)”
Pg. 49, Fig 3-2a change:
Structures for Oakland Hills fire to “2,900” Acres for Cedar fire to “273,246” Acres for 2003 Firestorm to “739,597” and Structure to “3,652”
Pg. 65, second paragraph, line 8, add “the” before Australian and add a comma “,” after the word model.
Pg. 75, in section 1 Legal Brush Clearance, replace first sentence with, “California Resources Code 4291 requires vegetation modification for a minimum distance of 100 feet around any structure located in a fire hazardous area (clearance of flammable vegetation within the first 30 feet, then an additional 70 feet of thinning).”
Pg. 101, Fig. 6-2 add an “a” to 2004 as in “Keeley 2004a”
Pg. 110, last paragraph, line 4: change figure 6-6 to “figure 6-5”
Pg. 110-111, last sentence on pg. 110, A wildfire…replace with: “When a wildfire occurs early in the post-treatment timeline, the treatment will be most effective in providing protection and risk reduction, but only minimally effective when a wildfire occurs late in the timeline.”
Pg. 112, footnote should indicate the Oct/Nov 2004 issue
Pg. 113, Figure 6-7, change cause of Pass, Old, and Otay fires to “Arson” and Grand Prix/Old, Paradise, and Mountain fires to “Equipment Use”
Pg. 131, animal #1 should be a Big-eared woodrat, add the “ed”
Pg. 135, replace bicolor with “concinnus”
Pg. 134, plant #8 is an Obligate Resprouter
Pg. 135, plant #40 is an Obligate Seeder
Pg. 142, plant photo #11, delete “Everlasting” refers to how long flowers last and replace with: “Everlasting” for stiff phyllaries around flower head.
Pg. 145, plant photo #18, replace sentence after = and replace with: for the hairy stems/sepals of some species after an intoxicated, bearded and portly Greek god.
Pg. 150, plant photo #27, L. bicolor needs to be changed L. concinnus under photo and in the Details section.
Pg. 156, plant #40 is an Obligate Seeder
Pg. 158, plant photo #43, first paragraph: replace “mine” with “mime”
Pg. 159, plant #46 is a Facultative Seeder
Pg. 163, plant photo #54, replace genera abbreviation C. with “A.”
Pg. 167, plant photo #62, delete Details description and replace with: “Three species in left photo: Left, E. moschatum, center, E. botrys, right, E. cicutarium. Corkscrew seeds unwind with moisture (E. botrys in right photo).”
