Devils Postpile National Monument - Environmental Factors

The vegetation and wildlife in the monument are adapted to periodic fire, and evidence of past fires can be found in charcoal and fire scars left on some trees. By dating fire events using tree-ring analysis or dendrochronology, one can develop a history of the frequency that fires burned through an area. While fire history studies have not been done for the Monument, fire history studies in similar forests in other areas of the Sierra Nevada have shown fires in lodgepole pine forests occurred an average of every 150 years and more frequently in lower elevation mixed conifer forests.