## 3 Results
### Fuel Dynamics Estimated from MODIS NPP  
The annual precipitation and the annual MODIS NPP for the Murphy fire region are shown in Figure 6a. MODIS NPP showed a slight decrease from 2000 to 2002 as the annual precipitation decreased, and increased to a peak value in 2005 when annual precipitation was highest. The similarities between NPP changes and annual precipitation illustrate the degree that precipitation impacts vegetation production in these shrub- and grass-dominated systems.  
The annual changes in the estimated live and dead fuel loads are presented in Figure 6b,c for the Murphy fire region. For grasslands, the estimated mean and standard deviation of the live herbaceous fuel load was 2.65 \(\pm\) 0.39 metric ton per hectare (ton ha\({}^{-1}\)) during the 10-year period, with the highest value in 2005 and the lowest value in 2008 (Figure 6b). The highest live fuel load (3.28 metric ton ha\({}^{-1}\) in 2005) was about 56% higher than the lowest fuel load (2.09 metric ton ha\({}^{-1}\) in 2008). After 2000, the live fuel load decreased to the lowest value in 2002 and then increased to the highest value in 2005. The mean annual 1 h dead fuel load (3.34 \(\pm\) 1.48 metric ton ha\({}^{-1}\)) was about 20% higher than the live fuel load (2.65 \(\pm\) 0.39 metric ton ha\({}^{-1}\)) from 2000 to 2009. The dead fuel changes showed a time lag compared with the live fuel load changes. The lowest dead fuel load value was in 2004 and the highest value was in 2007. Both of these were about one or two years later than the live fuel load lowest and highest values. This time lag is expected because the live fuel load accumulated during the growing season is used to calculate the dead fuel load production in the next year. Thus, the changes in live fuel load in one year only alter the input to the dead fuel load in the next year. Our results also showed clear impact of the fire event on live and dead fuel loads. After the fire event in 2007, both live and dead fuel loads showed the lowest values in 2008. The live herbaceous fuel showed much faster recovery than dead fuel after two years.  
Figure 5: Dead biomass for a single burn area (burned on July 15, 2005; solid line) versus mean biomass for sites that did not burn at any point during the 1984–2010 time frame (dashed line). Note that the burn area typically had higher biomass than the sites that did not burn throughout the entire time frame, with especially high values for the year that the site burned (as well as in 2007, when the site did not burn). The time axis represents the week of the year that biomass is estimated (e.g., w13_00 is the 13 th week in 2000).  
For shrublands, the estimated total fuel load was much higher than the total fuel load for grasslands even though they have similar productivities. The high amount of live woody fuel load was the main cause of this difference. The live woody fuel load comprised about 66% of the total fuel load and was much higher (7.97 \(\pm\) 3.20 ton ha\({}^{-1}\)) than the live herbaceous fuel load (1.42 \(\pm\) 0.20 ton ha\({}^{-1}\)) and the 1 h  
Figure 6: Climate and vegetation condition changes in the Murphy fire region from 2000 to 2009: (a) Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) net primary production and annual precipitation, (b) live herbaceous fuel and 1 h dead fuel changes for fuel type GR2 (low-load, dry-climate grass), (c) live fuel, live woody, and 1 h dead fuel changes for fuel type GS2 (moderate-load, dry-climate grass-shrub).  
dead fuel load (\(2.64\pm 1.14\) ton ha\({}^{-1}\)) during the 10-year period (Figure 6c). The fuel dynamics for shrubland kept increasing and showed less interannual variation than the fuel dynamics for grasslands. The fire event in 2007 removed most of the fuel load and the total fuel load was reduced by 80% (2.09 ton ha\({}^{-1}\) in 2008) compared with the previous year (14.46 ton ha\({}^{-1}\) in 2007).