Fire effects

[Patrick Foley]

Paul,

It is not too hard to find a California fire involving Eucalyptus (which 
is classified as a pyrophyte by Fire Departments.

http://hnn.us/comments/21748.html

http://www.csulb.edu/~llatham2/hazards/physical_dynamics.html

http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/eucglo/fire_effects.html

But this is probably getting tedious to everybody but you and me.

Fires are natural events in California, but fire fighters don't pour 
gasoline on them, and that is what they call Eucalyptus, "gasoline plants".

Patrick

Paul Cherubini wrote:

> Patrick Foley wrote:
> 
>>There are a couple of papers cited about the fire effects and ecology of
>>Eucalyptus.
>>
>><http://svinet2.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/eucglo/fire_effects.html>
> 
> 
> Pat, there are approximately 200 eucalyptus groves along the California
> coast that monarchs use for clustering. Have fires ever destroyed any 
> of them during the past 20 years?  Possibly, but none that I can think of 
> off hand.  A couple groves in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties were 
> damaged by fires in the 80's and 90's, (e.g. the Malibu coast fires of Oct. 1993) 
> but the trees recovered in about 5 years.  New growth sprouted from 
> many of the charred tree trunks.
> 
> Have fires ever destroyed any of the native Monterey Pine forests on 
> the Monterey Peninsula or at Cambria during the past 20 years?  Yes, 
> portions of the Monterey forests have suffered serious crown fires.
> 
> Have fires ever destroyed any of the native Coast Redwood and
> Douglas Fir forests during the past 20 years?  Yes, the Point
> Reyes National Park crown fire about 10 years ago comes to mind.
> 
> So both the native Monterey Pines, Redwoods and Firs as well as the
> Australian eucalyptus may burn when wild fires occur during droughts
> and low humidity conditions.  However, oil refineries, hospitals, schools,
> power plants, defense department missil launch sites, etc. all use both 
> eucalyptus and Monterey Pines as landscape ornamental trees.  Therefore, the
> fire hazard must be relatively minimal or else these businesses and
> institutions would not be able to obtain affordable fire insurance.
> 
> Paul Cherubini
> 
>  
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