Forest Resilience in the Sierra Nevada’s in the 21st century: Quincy Firewise and UC Cooperative extension welcomes Alexis Bernal

June 26, 2023 Lauren

Submitted by Ryan Tompkins.

The Quincy Firewise Community meeting will be held Wednesday evening (June 28, 2023) at 5:00 pm at the West End Theatre inside Quintopia. This month’s guest is Alexis Bernal, from the UC Berkeley Wildland Fire Science Lab.

Alexis is back up to Plumas County to teach forest measurements at UC Berkeley’s Forestry Camp and has graciously agreed to speak about some of her latest research on what forest resilience might look like as we progress into the twenty first century. Her talk will be based on her paper: “Biomass stocks in California’s Fire-prone forests: mismatch in ecology and policy” which was published in the scientific journal Environmental Research Letters in March of 2022. Alexis is currently a PhD. candidate with Dr. Scott Stephens at the UC Berkeley Wildland Fire Science lab. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Forestry and Natural Resources from UC Berkeley and a Master of Science in Forestry from Cal Poly Humboldt.

Alexis’s passion for bugs and fire led her to pursue research efforts that look at how restoration treatments can promote forest resilience. Her master’s research explored how different management techniques contribute to a tree’s ability to respond to bark beetle outbreaks so that we may better prepare our forests to withstand the inevitable future outbreaks under a changing climate. Over the past six years Alexis has been doing interesting, and exciting work on forest restoration ranging from how we quantify forest resilience through historical conditions, how thinning and prescribed fire influence tree mortality during droughts, and how mass fire behavior due to tree mortality and high tree densities aren’t predicted by operational fire behavior models…all topics which are important to Plumas County residents and land managers.

Alexis is a rising ecologist who is doing important, relevant, and applied work in California which will greatly inform how we continue to manage forests in the Sierra Nevada. Please join us in this unique and interesting opportunity to learn about her research and what it means for our mountain communities!

Quincy Firewise is a local volunteer group making efforts to create a more fire- aware and fire-prepared community. We invite all Quincy residents, including those from surrounding areas and other Firewise Communities, to join us the last Wednesday of every month from 5-6 pm at the West End Theater inside Quintopia. In addition to monthly guest speakers, we provide up to date information on home/property insurance, evacuation preparedness, home hardening tips, and home ignition zone design.

We will end the meeting with our monthly raffle for the “Beast Rake” (110$ value).

When: Wednesday, June 28th from 5-6 pm (meetings are scheduled the 4th Wednesday of every month)