Courses

ESPM C22AC: Fire: Past, Present and Future Interactions with the People and Ecosystems of California

The purpose of this class is to explore the interactions of fire with the people and ecosystems of California over the last 10,000 years. Most Californians today fear wildland fires that each year scorch millions of acres of land, cost hundreds of millions of dollars to fight, destroy human lives and property, and impact aesthetically pleasing landscapes; the 2017-2021 and 2024 Northern California fires are telling examples of this perspective. Yet people have not always lived in dread of fire conflagrations. Indigenous populations learned to live with fire over many centuries and to make constructive use of it to enhance the diversity, quantity, and sustainability of plant and animal communities. Some Spanish, Mexican, and early American colonists employed prescribed burning to enhance grazing and timber lands in some areas of the state. This class emphasizes how our interactions with wildfires in California have changed dramatically over the centuries, and that there is much that can be learned from earlier fire management strategies – some of which may be applicable to our contemporaneous world.

ESPM 181A: Fire Ecology

The historic, current, and future role of wildland fire is a major ecological, management, and political issue. Tremendous resources and sometimes lives are lost each year to wildfire. Concerns over issues such as forest conservation and carbon sequestration have also highlighted the importance of understanding the role of fire in ecosystems. The objective of this course is to introduce students to wildland fuels, fire behavior, fire management, prescribed fire, fire history methods, fire ecology, fire-climate change interactions, and how to manage ecosystems into the future to increase resilience and adaptation.

ESPM 105A: Sierra Nevada Ecology (at UCB Forestry Summer Camp)

Sierra Nevada Ecology is a three-week field course designed to give students an opportunity to learn surrounded by the environment they are studying. During the course we will cover ecological concepts and gain a better understanding of the relationships between the physical environment and the biological communities of the Sierra Nevada. We will emphasize hands-on learning to illustrate ecological concepts. 

Sierra Nevada ecology is a very broad topic and the materials we cover in this class are used in upper division forestry classes on the UCB campus. We begin with plant identification, followed by lectures and field exercises in forest succession and fire regimes. Next, we begin a set of days when faculty from UC Berkeley and other scientists come up for a day to give their expertise in a particular area including soils, meadow ecology, wildlife ecology, stream invertebrates, hydrology, all of these provide fundamental ecological principles for later parts of summer camp. We also spend days on landscape ecology and the impacts of the 2021 Dixie Fire, the largest wildfire in recorded Sierra Nevada history. The class will also discuss Indigenous land use history and how the Mountain Maidu are working today to gain access to their ancestral lands and practice their cultural traditions.

ESPM 265: Fire Ecology Seminar

The goal of the Fire Ecology Seminar is to focus on the latest fire ecology research. Weekly readings and seminars will be followed by discussion. The class is for graduate students or advanced undergraduates. The class will include outside speakers, each of them are experts in an aspect of fire ecology in the US and internationally.