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2008 Angel Island Fire: Post Fire Analysis with Photos
by WILLIAM CHAPPELL American River College, GEOG 350: Data Acquisition in GIS; Spring 2009
Abstract On Sunday October 12, 2008, a fire started in the early evening and burned across the southern half of Angel Island in San Francisco bay. Firefighters battled it well into the next evening before finally containing the flames. Although the historic buildings on the island were untouched, the south facing half of the island was scorched and scarred. This paper takes up at the point that the fire was extinguished and gives a simple overview of the post fire analysis, by using photos, and shows the rejuvenation of the island's landscape six months after the fire.
Introduction As the sun was setting beyond the Golden Gate on Sunday, Oct. 12, 2008, a small fire on the eastern edge of Angel Island was quietly taking hold and beginning to grow out of control. Through the coming night and into the next day, it would march across the southern half of the island, providing a spectacular show (1) (2) (3) (4) for everyone across the bay in San Francisco and Sausalito, but would greatly scar the landscape of the island itself. Driven by easterly winds, heavy overgrown vegetation, and steep hillsides, the fire consumed 380 of the island’s 740 shrubby acres. Angel Island is a California State Park and presently is uninhabited except for a few State Park employees. For the most part the terrain is undeveloped and natural. There is a long and varied historical use of the island, from the Miwok Indians, through the Civil War, two World Wars, control of Chinese immigration, and up through the Cold War of the early 1960's. A lot of remnants from these sites are still intact and are visited by thousands of visitors each year. There are also some hike-in campgrounds on the island for those visitors who want an overnight experience, along with a superb view of the lights of San Francisco. But along with campsites comes the element of fire. And along with fire comes a possibility of disaster. It was one of these campers, the Park Service theorizes, that ignited the fire that started up the hill. It raged all through Sunday night and into Monday before being stopped. And although the firefighters were able to contain it before losing any of the historic buildings, the fire blackened the entire southern half of the island. This is where my project begins. Although the fire was out and the firefighters and equipment had gone, the story of this fire did not end there. An assessment of damage and a post fire analysis had to be done. Some recovery actions needed to be acted upon immediately, while others would be assessed and monitored for many weeks, months, and even years to come. I will outline some of the main objectives in doing a post fire analysis along with collecting a series of photographs showing the recovery of the landscape in the months since the burn. Angel Island vegetation is populated with California native trees and shrubs which have adapted themselves to survive fire and regenerate themselves. But, the island is also populated with many non-native invasive species of plants. You will see through the photos that the landscape is coming back and that the fire will ultimately be viewed upon as a benefit to the island's landscape.
Background Fire alters the landscape. There is no doubt about that. But what looks like a devastating event in the short term, can be a rejuvenating event in the long term. Fires create immediate damages like dead vegetation, displaced animals, and erosion problems. But fires also create long term benefits to an ecosystem like forest regeneration, seed germination, understory clean out, and many others. In a large fire, the forest service may assess the fire by bringing in a team that can include soil scientists, hydrologists, foresters, botanists and others with a wide range of knowledge and experiences as needed.Univ. of Idaho: "After the Burn" On smaller fires, including the Angel Island fire, conditions are just generally assessed for any emergency conditions, for example public safety due to weakened trees or serious erosion, and then periodically monitored while the burned area makes its own natural recovery. A typical post fire analysis, conducted shortly after the fire is out, will touch on most of the following items, although due to staffing and budget constraints, not all were done on Angel Island: Identify and map the burn perimeter: On a small fire with easy access, this is done by walking the perimeter with a GPS unit to record waypoints and then create a shapefile. On large fires, this is done with a remote sensing device. Assess the burn damage of the vegetation: Walk the burn area and do a qualitative analysis of the burned vegetation. The immediate concern is to determine the state of the damaged trees and shrubs and whether any have to be dealt with to secure public safety. Some of a plant's fire resistance and tolerance can be exhibited through the following characteristics: Bark thickness: Bark protects the cambium layer, the living cells layer that conducts water and nutrients from the roots throughout the tree. The thicker the bark, the better the chance of survival. If the bark is severely blackened, charring has reduced the bark thickness, and the bark is cracked or separated from the wood, the cambium is most likely dead. The best way to test the health of the cambium layer is to cut away a small portion of the bark. If the exposed cambium is dark or yellowish, it’s probably dead. Heat-killed cambium will brown within a few days, with bark cracking and separating from the underlying wood. If it is white or pinkish, it is probably alive and the survival of the new buds hidden under the bark have a good chance of sprouting in the spring, thereby assuring the survival of the tree.UC Berkeley Cooperative Extension Trees that have a high water content and are actively growing are more easily killed than dormant ones. Because of this, late summer/fall burns are better for survival than late spring/early summer burns. Above ground sprouting: In general, leaf injury is much less damaging. Trees that have had most or all of their foliage burned off will likely recover if the cambium layer is intact. If the leaves have been scorched, the tree may look unsightly, but will most likely sprout out with new growth the following spring. Next year’s buds are hidden under the bark. Buds begin forming at the end of spring to provide next years growth. A spring/early summer fire can seriously impact the chances of survival if these new buds have not yet developed. The Angel Island fire was in October, therefore the chances of buds sprouting the next spring were very good. Underground roots/stems: Soil is a great insulator. If the trees and shrubs have a deep root system, their roots can survive a good deal of heat from a fire. Many vines and clump grasses can survive because of their underground root structures. These root structures vary in size, shape, and depth in the soil. Fire intensity directly impacts these roots and can determine which ones regenerate. This can lead to a non-native species of plant surviving and competing to take over from a native species. "Effects of fire on plants and animals" Do a burn intensity analysis: Low: Does not burn up the forest canopy; Scorched leaves on lower branches; ground partially covered by old needles, leaves, and decaying wood. Medium: Burns into the canopy of many trees, but not all and burns a major portion of the ground cover. The biggest and most vigorous trees stay alive. High: Burns off half to all of the forest canopy and everything on the forest floor. The resulting ash is white or gray and is very susceptible to erosion at the first rains. Under certain conditions, a water-repellant layer can form on top of the ash covered soil that will decrease the absorbing ability of the soil, which will lead to increased rain runoff leading to erosion problems.University of Arizona: "Recovering From Wildfire" Assess potential erosion problems: Fire disrupts the natural runoff process. Normally tree canopy and forest floor litter deflects the rain drops which affects their impact on the soil. With canopies and ground cover gone, there is very little to stop the rains from carrying the soil down the slopes, entering streams and the bay, changing and reducing the water quality. Without a litter layer, rain is more apt to hit the ground and run off. Erosion control methods serve to cover the soil surface to protect it from rain impact, improve the soil’s ability to absorb water and reduce the speed and amount of water flow. Various methods include covering the area with straw mulch, plant with quick germinating grasses with fiberous root systems, hydromulch with a mixture of straw, newspaper, fiber, and seeds, contour log terraces created by placing downed trees perpendicular to the direction of the slope and staggered to not allow any water to run off the slope in a straight line. Some commercial products include: Straw mats, jute netting, and straw wattles. Straw wattles, which are long tubes of plastic netting packed with straw, are preferred because they are flexible and can be molded to the contour of the slope. Straw bales placed in small drainages will act as a series of dams. Anything can be used which will slow down and/or divert the water so that it has a better chance of soaking in and not carrying the soil down the slope. Identify animal survival / displacements: Direct effects: a fire will physically have animals on the move to escape the advancing flames. Below ground animals can survive by going deep into their burrows, using the soil as an insulator. Above ground animals will be displaced to areas that are not burned. Indirect effects: a fire will alter the quantity and quality of a food source. For example, an abundance of dead insects will be a welcome meal for birds. Fresh grasses will be nutritious for the herbivores. Burned understory will create open areas on the slopes where thick vegetation once was a hiding place."Effects of fire on plants and animals" Depending on where you are on the food chain, this can be good, or bad, because of the increased visibility.

Methods CAMERA USED: Kodak Z730 Digital Zoom Resolution = 230dpi; Color: sRGB; ISO: 80; Exposure: 1/180 sec.; Aperture: F/4. GPS UNIT USED: Garmin "GPSmap 76S" - 12 channel handheld GPS receiver; Quad Helix antenna; 4 level gray monochrome display.
Data Recording: In the field, I went into the Garmin GPS unit and into the Kodak camera, found the internal clock for each and reset the camera's clock to match (to the same minute) with the Garmin's clock. At each photo position then, I would take my picture, immediately enter a waypoint into the GPS unit, and then enter a picture number into my paper notebook, with a brief description of what the photo was about. I repeated this process as I hiked around the island, documenting the items that I wanted to include in my post fire analysis. Back at home: At home I downloaded the waypoints into DNR Garmin sofware, then exported them out of DNR Garmin as a Microsoft Excel file. In MS Excel, I had to parse the data into columns because the entire data came in "fused" together in column-A. I did this by highlighting column-A, then clicking on "Data" tab / Text to Columns / Delimited / Next / by Comma / Finish. It worked well and I was able to see each waypoint, along with their X,Y,and Z coordinates AND their timestamps. Click to enlarge Excel Parse of GPS coordinates download The pictures were downloaded through the camera's Kodak software into a folder on my harddrive. There was no way that I could download a list of photos and see all their time stamps in one spreadsheet. But with a bit of patience, I was able to open the list of photos in MS Windows Explorer and display them in "thumbnail" view. By right clicking on the thumbnail, I opened "Properties", clicked on "Summary" tab, opened "Advanced" tab, scrolled to near the bottom to see "date and time picture was taken". I was very happy to see that the time stamps of many of the pictures matched precisely (same hour & minute) with a waypoint time stamp from the GPS unit. The ones that didn't have a match were pictures taken without a GPS reading. To organize the pictures into a workable form, I printed sheets of thumbnail photos ("index printing") with photo file numbers listed by each one. I could then manually compare photo timestamps with GPS timestamps, thereby matching photos to waypoint I.D. Numbers.
Results Identify and map the burn area: Although I was too late (the fire was back in October, 2008) to accurately walk the perimeter and record the burn boundaries, I was able to obtain an accurate shapefile from the Marin County Fire District. Kent Julin, Registered County Forester for Marin County, walked the line immediately after the fire. I was able to use his shapefile as a layer in ArcMap and overlay it onto a topo map I downloaded off the ESRI website. The final area burned was 380 acres Click to enlarge Note the "FIRE ORIGIN". It was believed to be human caused and the investigation is currently ongoing, according to Angel Island Ranger Jack Duggan. The origin of the fire was in proximity to these water storage units. It did not start within a campsite. The flames were first pushed up this hill, aided by easterly winds which were rare for this area of San Francisco bay. You'll notice that only the understory, not the tree crowns, were burned. This indicates a low burn intensity. The fire did not gain its intensity until after it got over the ridge. Assess the burn damage of the vegetation: I was able to walk a good portion of the burn area looking for evidence of how different vegetation types may have survived the fire. Below are examples of what I found. Fire did not damage tree due to its thick bark. These trees will most likely recover because the total canopy (leaves) was not burned. Note the shurbs are totally burned. If they are a stump sprouting shrub, which these Coyote Bushes are, they will survive come springtime. This slope had an intense burn. The above ground vegetation here will not likely survive. Anticipate below ground vines and seeds to rejuvenate in the spring and take over the slope. Do a burn analysis: Click to enlarge Note: this is only a representative ArcMap overlay of what a burn intensity map might look like. I have fabricated the numbers because a true intensity analysis of the fire is beyond the scope of this project. The following are pictures that exemplify the various degrees of burn intensity as described above. (Pic #1: Low burn intensity) (Pic #2: Moderate burn intensity) (Pic #3: High burn intensity) High Burn Intensity: Note the dust kicked up by the walker. There is no organic litter in the soil. Identify animal survival: I did see and document some deer. I was not concentrating on other animals, therefore have no photos. These deer were sighted about two months after the fire. Assess Erosion Problems: This area was identified as a priority slope for erosion control. Although the photo is from a distance, you can see the use of jute netting and straw wattles to lessen the impact of falling rain and to divert any runoff water. SIX (6) MONTHS AFTER THE FIRE: California Native Species Approximately six months after the fire, the spring rains have brought most all of the burn area back to life. The following are photos documenting some Calfornia native species of vegetation that have adapted their survival to fire. They do this through stump and bud sprouting. Coyote Bush stump sprouting in spring, six months after the fire. California Live Oaks have hidden buds under their bark which, if not damaged by the heat of the fire, will sprout out in the spring. Some natives, if the top is completely burned, will sprout from basal buds at the base of the plant. Non-Native Invasive Species A concern to the California State Parks Department after every fire is the amount of non-native plant vegetation that survives and begins to take over the landscape, quite often out-competing with the native species. The following are examples of non-native plant materials that have taken hold. Click to enlarge This map was downloaded from CA State Parks Dept. to show what a typical mapping of non-native plants, as a shapefile in ArcMap, would look like. Actual mapping of current non-native plants, for me to do, was beyond the scope of this project. (Pic #1: Wild Cucumber Vine) (Pic #2: Wild Cucumber Vine) (Pic #3: Harding Grass) The state parks department is currently trying to eradicate this grass as evidenced by the herbicide kill in the picture. (Pic #1: Thistle) (Pic #2: Thistle) (Pic #3: Broom) (Pic #1: Soap Plant) (Pic #2: Soap Plant) (Pic #3: Herbacious Plant) Deer Sightings Very few animals on Angel Island were thought to have been killed by the fire. Most moved to the other side of the island. There was one reported raccoon that died. The parks department will be doing their annual deer count this summer. It has been estimated that there is a herd of about 60 deer living on the island. I can say that I never saw any deer before the fire, but have seen dozens of them each time I have visited after the fire. This is probably due to the increased visibility and lack of underbrush for them to hide in during the day. (Pic #1: at Camp Reynolds) (Pic #2: at Fort McDowell)
Analysis Overall, I was happy with the way that the project of creating a post fire analysis, by use of photos and waypoints, turned out. Synchronizing the clocks in the camera and the GPS unit worked well. The timestamps matched and after a couple of translations through some other program software, I was able to use the pictures and the data when I returned home. There were, on the other hand, several parts of the project that I had to be creative and wrestle through. The biggest problem was that I should have been doing all the preliminary data collecting and analysis immediately after the fire. But last October, when the fire took place, I had no idea that I'd be doing this project. By March of this year, spring grasses had germinated and made it impossible to see where the burn area and edges were. It was very helpful to have gotten some early-on data from the Marin County Fire Dept. and the Calif. State Parks office. In other parts, for instance the burn intensity analysis, I could only represent what a map overlay might look like, since no analysis was performed. I was forced to create a map with some fabricated data, to be used for demonstration purposes only. I also would make improvements on my data collecting by taking better field notes of pictures taken, corresponding with waypoints taken. Although the timestamps matched, I ended up with lots more pictures than waypoints. It would have been easier to match later at home if I had had a one-to-one photo-to-waypoint numbering system. I also spent a lot of time manually matching camera timestamps to GPS timestamps. For future projects of this type, I would look into using an integrated software that would do this for me. (see "Conclusions" below) To be more scientific in my photo analysis, I should have used a better system to show measurement in my pictures. A ruler and/or tape measure in the pictures would have given a better measurement reference to compare against on any follow-up analysis. I would certainly do this next time. Finally, it is worth making a note of the ongoing controversy regarding the groves of eucalyptus trees, a non-native species of vegetation, on the island. Eucalyptus is well documented for their explosive fire properties, sometimes being called the “gasoline tree" audubonmagazine.org. Bree Hardcastle, a state parks environmental scientist, pointed out that "the picture would have been much uglier if most of the island's hot-burning eucalyptus trees had not been removed 12 years ago". But surrounding Camp Reynolds on the west side of the island is another grove with historical significance, connected to the Civil War camp. With proper cleanup and regular, on-going maintenance, it is argued that they should stay. In regards to future fires on the island, this is a divisive issue that most likely will continue to be ongoing.
Conclusions Although the fire of Oct. 12, 2008 scorched half the acreage of Angel Island, my overview of a post fire analysis through photos presented above shows that the island's landscape is indeed coming back to life. In fact, the fire was a sort of cleansing prescription, called on to burn off the overgrown slopes and create a chance for the vegetation to rejuvenate itself. The burn area will continue to be monitored and analyzed for years to come. A suggested practice would be to establish a series of set photo points throughout the island where pictures could be periodically taken and compared for qualitative changes. This would help in inventorying damage and help compare conditions and changes over time. I would also recommend the use of an integrated photo system to geo-tag photos. There are a couple on the market that claim to do a good job. Check into GeoSpacial Experts.com with their GPS-Photo Link software and EveryTrail.com to map your GPS documented trips through photos. You can click here to take a fun excursion on a hike up Half Dome in Yosemite.
References Barkley, Yvonne C., August, 2006. Idaho Forest, Wildlife and Range Experiment Station, Moscow, Idaho. After the Burn: Assessing and Managing Your Forestland After a Wildfire. Page 28. www.cnr.uidaho.edu/extforest/AftertheBurnFinal.pdf Deneke, Fred, 08/2002. University of Arizona, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Recovering From Wildfire. cals.arizona.edu/pubs/natresources/az1294.pdf Fire Ecology and Management in Northern Australia. Ecology Section. Effects of fire on plants and animals: Individual level. learnline.cdu.edu.au/units/sbi263/ecology/individual.html McCreary, Doug. U.C. Sierra Research and Extension Center. Homeowners: What to do after a fire. firecenter.berkeley.edu/toolkit/homeowners.html Prado, Mark 04/04/2009. Contra Costa Times. After being ravaged by fire, Angel Island is back in bloom. www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_12075552 Williams, Ted. 01/2002. Audubon Magazine. America’s Largest Weed. audubonmagazine.org/incite/incite0201.html
Appendices Special thanks to the following people for their help with my project: Kent Julin, Ph.D., Registered Professional Forester, Marin County Fire Dept. Bree Hardcastle, Environmental Scientist, California State Parks, Marin District. Marty Chappell, San Francisco: Helped with taking many of the pictures used in this project. Related Weblinks: Angel Island Association: www.angelisland.org California State Parks, Angel Island: www.parks.ca.gov Angel Island.com: www.angelisland.com Short overview of the history of Angel Island. www.sfgate.com