Introduction to Fire in California

California Natural History Guides #95

by David Carle

An up-to-date, essential guide to California's long relationship with fire, for the climate-change generation.

What is fire? How are wildfires ignited? How do California's weather and topography influence fire? How did Indigenous people use fire on the land we now call California? David Carle's clearly written, dramatically illustrated first edition of Introduction to Fire in California helped Californians, including the millions who live near naturally flammable wildlands, better understand their own place in the state's landscape. In this revised edition, Carle covers the basics of fire ecology; looks at the effects of fire on people, wildlife, soil, water, and air; discusses fire-fighting organizations and land-management agencies; and explains how to prepare for an emergency and what to do when one occurs.
 
This second edition brings the wildfire story up to the year 2020, with information about recent extreme and deadly fire events and the evidence that climate change is swiftly changing the wildfire story in California. This update reflects current debates about California's future as a climate-crisis leader facing massive, annual natural disasters; the future of California development and housing; and the critically necessary alternatives to traditional energy options.
 
Features:
A larger, more reader-friendly page format
More than 110 color illustrations and maps
An overview of major wildfires in California's history
An updated and expanded discussion of the effect of climate change on fires in natural landscapes
Tips on what to do before, during, and after fires
Discussion of utility companies and massive power shutoffs

Genres: Nonfiction, Science

248 pages, Paperback

First published July 5, 2008

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well researched and written. The author is very knowledgeable, and provides great photos throughout the book. I really like the 1st section where he describes how fire affects various plant habitats. For those of us living in CA there is some invaluable information here.

[Victor]

I got the second edition from 2021 and it's good and it covers a lot of topics such as chaperal and the melanophila acuminata Fire Beetle. The parts about the fires makes me kind of sick, probably every Californian knows someone wildfires have affected. Well it also talks about the early fire technology, from the beginning people wanted to do prescribed burns (previously called controlled burns but now there's enough science their like tree doctors) but the arguments in the San Fransico papers were about "don't burn down the baby trees we will need those for lumber" wildfires in the old days were caused more by unnessissary tree limbs being littered around by the lumber industry, so they did use different methods back then. Now fire is caused by electrity--well it all depends where you live, the book showed that some places campfires getting out of the control is the majority, other places it's industrial tools. It's kind of lame, I just personally thought of this unrelated, that Yosemite always talks about "increasing temperatures makes there be more trees in meadows disappearing meadows" if only there was a way to force the trees to move back from the medow. This book actually mentions that probably a lot of meadows are man-made so what does it really mean to be losing them? It means Yosemite is not following the traditions of the people it vacated to make a park, the people that made the park so spectacular-looking and a "land of many uses" in the first place, Yosemite can't blame everyone (climate change) for decisions that it makes (lazy not managing the trees) burn down tuolumne meadows (safely)