California has a broad diversity of forest ecosystems and associated wildlife, which are facing complex conservation challenges due to the increase in the frequency, severity, and size of fire outbreaks throughout the state. Although these ecosystems are fire adaptive, these catastrophic fires burn with such high severity that they destroy complete forest stands and kill off the seed bank needed for natural forest regeneration. One of the primary mechanisms for reducing the threat of high severity fires is fuel management treatments to reduce the understory and prevent damaging crown fires from occurring. Increasingly federal, state, and private entities are coordinating fuel management projects across the patchwork of ownership [...]
