Public Lands and Fire in California
By: Greeninfo Network
Tags: California, Wildfire, Mapping

This year’s record-breaking fire season — with over 4 million acres burned — has been a major source of anxiety for many of us in California. Just this week, on December 7, we had red flag warnings and dry winds blowing from the interior.

The California Protected Areas Database is very good at counting acres. With the latest version of CPAD (released on Dec. 9, at calands.org), we can tell you that 2,779,456 acres of public lands were within active fire perimeters in 2020. We can also tell you that 89% of those acres were on federal lands, mostly National Forests.

Some experts, such as those featured in this NPR story, say focusing on total acres burned is not the only, or even the best, way to think about fire and its many impacts. Fires burn across landscapes in vastly different ways: Some ecosystems thrive on fire while others suffer. Some fires burn without destroying people’s lives and livelihoods, others leave behind a heartbreaking tragedy of lost homes and lost futures.

But we can do more than count the 2.8 million acres impacted. We can also look at which agencies and organizations were most affected and even which specific parks and preserves burned.

The combined regions of Shasta Cascade and Central Valley were home to over 50% of the impacted acres. Shasta Cascades on its own is 35% of all public lands burned in 2020. It’s also home to less than 1 percent of the state’s population. The Central Valley, meanwhile, is home to 6 percent of Californians. Fires in those regions have big impacts on those people, and on the state’s carbon emissions and air quality. That said, those fires are also more likely to be in remote, minimally developed areas that have evolved with fire over thousands of years.

2020 fire perimeters overlaid on top of CPAD lands.

Shasta Cascades: 984,505 acres, 35%

Central Valley: 583,977 acres, 21%

Northern Coast: 292,125 acres, 11%

Sacramento Valley: 290,646 acres, 10%

Bay Area: 234,314 acres, 8%

Southern Coast: 152,998 acres, 6%

Central Coast: 132,484 acres, 5%

Southern Inland Desert: 66,121 acres, 2%

Central Sierra: 42,286 acres, 2%

Similarly, we found that almost 90% of the acres burned were under federal control. But that doesn’t mean state and local agencies were not heavily affected. All told, nearly 80 agencies are dealing with the aftermath of fires and many of those are local city, county or nonprofit organizations. In fact, if we look at the number of agencies affected, the vast majority are smaller — special districts, counties, and cities coping with the challenges of wildfire on the lands they manage.

All those fires burned in some 232 different parks. For example, fires burned this year in 22 different State Park units. The SCU Complex burned 57,000 acres in Henry W. Coe State Park near Gilroy. Based on work we did with UCLA in 2019, we know that about 79,000 people live within an easy drive of that park, so it’s a place they might visit regularly. The third-highest acreage burned in a state park was the nearly 9,000 acres burned during the Blue Ridge Fire in Chino Hills State Park near Riverside. More than 700,000 people live within easy driving distance of that park. With COVID constraining our lives in so many ways, parks are more important than ever for the physical and mental well-being of nearby residents.

The “driveshed” of Chino Hills State Park

Those fire experts that say we shouldn’t just count acres burned are right — Without detailed severity data and a deep understanding of California ecosystems, it’s not easy to know the impact of a particular fire on a landscape. By the same token, a burned landscape can come back into amazing bloom in future years and provide an even richer experience for park visitors.

But in this moment, as we cope with COVID and survey 2020 as the biggest fire season on record, CPAD can provide insights and a foundation for understanding how fire affects us and the habitats we call home.

Are you using CPAD to analyze the impacts of fire on public lands, park access, habitats, or anything else? We’d love to hear from you if so. Email us at cpad@greeninfo.org, or post your map to Instagram or Twitter and tag us!