Question

What might be the relationship between frequency of fires and intensity - how long and hot do they burn? Why might this be?

Answer 1

Fire intensity describes the energy released from the fire or characteristics of the fire behavior such as flame length and rate of spread.

Fig: Major forest ecosystems in California plus chaparral, arranged by their pre‐Euroamerican settlement fire regime (y‐axis; increasing from top to bottom) and the range of their current departure from presettlement fire frequencies (x‐axis; departure ranges from Safford and Van de Water 2013). Locations along both axes are approximate. CC = condition class Dry subalpine and redwood NI (NI = natural ignitions, excluding human ignitions) types estimated without data from Safford and Van de Water (2013). Redwood HI = redwood forest including human ignitions. HRV = historic range of variability. Fire regime types (I, III, IV, V) from Schmidt et al. (2002).