Weather and Fire Environment | Santa Barbara Firesafe Council

The Hot-Dry-Windy Index: A New Tool for Forecasting Fire Weather

by Nic Elmquist | Jul 7, 2020 | Weather and Fire Environment

This paper explains the new Hot-Dry-Windy Index which will replace the Haines Index, which has been in place since 1988, to predict days with weather conditions present to contribute to extreme fire behavior.

The Fire Environment Concept

by sbfirescadmin | May 8, 2020 | Resources, Weather and Fire Environment

If We Imagine A Layer Of Vegetation Added To The Topography, We Have The Second Influence-the Fuel. It Is The Source Of Thermal Energy And The Driving Force Behind The Phenomena Of Fire Behavior.

Sundowner winds

by sbfirescadmin | May 8, 2020 | Resources, Weather and Fire Environment

Along the Pacific coastline, beneath the ridges and canyons of the Santa Ynez Mountains, Santa Barbara, California enjoys some of the earth’s most favorable weather.

Native Peoples’ Relationship to the California Chaparral

by sbfirescadmin | May 8, 2020 | Resources, Weather and Fire Environment

Ethnographic interviews and historical literature reviews provide evidence that for many tribes of California, chaparral plant communities were a rich source of food, medicines, and technologies and that they supplemented natural fires with deliberate burning of...

A summary of current trends and probable future trends in climate and climate-driven processes in the Los Padres National Forest and neighboring lands

by sbfirescadmin | May 8, 2020 | Resources, Weather and Fire Environment

This summary of climate and climate driven trends in southern California is a product of the Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Region Ecology Program.

Increase Precip Volatility SwainetIncreasing precipitation volatility in twenty-first- century Californiaal 2018

by sbfirescadmin | May 8, 2020 | Resources, Weather and Fire Environment

Mediterranean climate regimes are particularly susceptible to rapid shifts between drought and flood—of which, California’s rapid transition from record multi-year dryness between 2012 and 2016 to extreme wetness during the 2016–2017 winter provides a dramatic...

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Last year UC Santa Barbara received an endowment gift to establish a lecture series on the topic of wildfire prevention and policy. Join us in the inaugural event, November 4th, as author Stephen Pyne gives a talk titled "The Pyrocene: America Between Three Fires". Click HERE for the event poster.