Coordinated Fire Management for Resilient Coastal Prairies
Introduction:
The Coastal Prairie Fire Working Group brings together land practitioners, scientists, ranchers, and tribal representatives to learn and share how to best manage coastal prairies along the Central Coast with fire. Initiated by the UC Santa Cruz Center for Coastal Climate Resilience Implementation Grant, led by Karen Holl, Georgia Vasey, and Grey Hayes, this research project provides a multifaceted approach to collaborative guidance on managing resilient CA coastal prairie ecosystems. A climate vulnerability assessment by the Santa Cruz Mountain Region concluded that coastal prairies are vulnerable to climate change due to high native species loss and habitat degradation. Prescribed fire is used as a tool to manage these ecosystems by promoting indigenous cultural values, implementing buffers around forests to slow the spread of wildfire, and impacting vegetation composition and carbon storage outcomes. This project assesses prescribed fire impact on coastal prairies in San Mateo, Santa Cruz, and Monterey Counties.
Prescribed Burn in Eucalyptus Grove at Wilder Ranch
Project Background:
Prescribed fire is a management technique that can be used in conjunction with other strategies to enhance biodiversity, manage excess fine fuel loads, and encourage sustainability of mosaic habitat types. California Tribes have used fire for millennia to maintain hunting landscapes, promote diverse plant growth, foster food sovereignty, and decrease the threat of unmanageable fires. Prescribed fire in prairies allows native plants to thrive by opening up space and providing light for germination, prevents woody shrub encroachment, and helps facilitate the recycling of soil nutrients. Despite these benefits, there remains uncertainty in how fire timing, intensity, and duration affect vegetation composition and carbon storage in degraded coastal prairies.
Containment Line at Andrew Molera
To explore whether prescribed fire can be an effective tool for restoring and managing prairies along the Central Coast, this requires regional collaboration and coordination among industry professionals, universities, and land managers. Research is underway to evaluate how prescribed burning in prairies affects vegetation, soil carbon, and fuel characteristics. These results will be complemented by local knowledge shared through interviews and workshops.
Project Overview:
The coastal prairie management guide synthesizes existing literature, results of field research, and site knowledge provided by local experts. This guide provides recommendations for managing fire to specific vegetation, carbon storage, and cultural goals while identifying priorities for future research. All guides, maps, literature, and resources related to this research will be shared widely through networks of collaborating organizations and archived in a statewide land management database supervised by Grey Hayes and Cal Poly Swanton Pacific Ranch.
To achieve this, the project is undertaking three tasks to synthesize and enhance the knowledge base on coastal prairie fire management:
Task #1:
Collaborate with partners to develop a regional fire management guide through four workshops outlined below
Workshop 1 Summer '23: Begin compiling GIS mapping data
Workshop 2 Winter '24: Developing an ArcGIS online coastal prairie map
Workshop 3 Fall '24: Preliminary fieldwork results and update
Workshop 4 Winter '25: Preliminary fieldwork results and share maps with management guide
Task #2:
Compile existing coastal prairie management literature and spatial data
This data informs the development of an online Coastal Prairie Map with Fire that spans northern Monterey to San Mateo counties. Research assistants with the Holl Lab will query and create various spatial layers such as burn history, vegetation, soil type, land ownership, climate, and topography.
Task #3:
Monitor pre and post-fire vegetation and carbon stocks in natural and controlled burns
Over the two-year grant period, about 10 coastal prairies planned for prescribed burns, and two natural burns from the CZU fire, are visited in fall and spring. Each prairie has a paired unburned prairie for comparison. Fall data collection includes comparing pre- and post- burn soil carbon, fire intensity and severity, and biofuel measurements (e.g. litter, RDM). Spring data collection includes measuring plant species abundance and richness, soil bulk density, texture, and pH.
#1:Cascade field pre-burn #2:Cascade field postburn #3:Cascade field Spring postburn
Carbon Cycling:
