Chaparral is one of the least appreciated natural communities in the West. Yet this shrubland assemblage occupies 9-10% of California’s land area and is one of the most abundant vegetative communities in the state.
Wildfire is a significant feature of this community. High-severity fire is the dominant fire regime. However, there are substantial myths about the relationship between chaparral and wildfire (more on below). However, many agencies believe that you “restore” chaparral by introducing frequent wildfire, a policy that is destroying chaparral.
Chaparral cloaks the Laguna Mountains, Cleveland National Forest, CA. Photo George Wuerthner
Chaparral is primarily found at lower elevations between sea level and 4,500 feet, but everywhere from the coastal margin to desert mountains.
Chaparral is a collection of sclerophyllous (hard-leaved), woody shrubs common in climates dominated by summer drought and wet winters (Mediterranean).
Sclerophyllous leaves, with their waxy coatings and recessed stomata, reduce evaporation.
Representative common chaparral plants include various species of manzanita, coastal sagebrush, oaks, buckwheats, salvia, ceanothus, chamise, redshank, toyon, and bush poppy.
The cowboy “chaps” were developed to help protect legs from the stiff and sometimes prickly stems of chaparral.
Old-growth chaparral is usually more than sixty years old. One of the misconceptions about chaparral is that “fire suppression” has led to dense old stands of these plants.
However, old-growth chaparral has always been a component of California lands.
Dense, impenetrable stands of chaparral are the “natural” condition.
The main threat to chaparral comes from frequent fire, fed by the new-found love affair with Indian cultural burning, which presumes that tribal people burned low-elevation landscapes so often that fires occurred every 2-5 years. The fact that scrub is one of the most abundant plant communities in California and is destroyed by frequent fires is part of the evidence that cultural burning did not have a landscape-scale influence.
The natural fire regime in these communities is high-severity blazes. It is not due to fire suppression, lack of cultural burning, or other misconceptions.
Burning chaparrals frequently typically leads to the loss of chaparral and replacement or type conversation by grasses, which burn often.
Chaparral suffers from too frequent wildfires due to prescribed or cultural fire, arson, and climate change. Prescribed burning is entirely inappropriate in chaparral ecosystems.
As with sagebrush steppe, high-frequency wildfire is the greatest threat to chaparral ecosystems.
To learn more about these unique plant communities see the California Chaparral Institute.
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