Fire Ecology Hike to the Summit of Figueroa Mountain

Saturday, April 18

Field trip with Matt Kay
Annual wildflowers such as sky lupine and tufted poppy (Lupinus nanus, Eschscholzia caespitosa) put on great displays in the burn zone on Figueroa last spring, and we may be lucky enough to see a similar profusion of blooms this year. Photo by John Evarts.

On this hike to the summit area of Figueroa Mountain, biologist Matt Kay will focus on the themes of recovery and resiliency in the plant life of this ecological sky island. Much of the mountain was burned during the Lake Fire of July 2024. Now, nearly two years after this wildfire, the Figueroa landscape is undergoing a transformation that provides a living classroom for the study of fire ecology. The trip

Chaparral Plant Adaptations and Patterns of Recovery from Wildfire — Lecture recording

Free Zoom lecture with Matt Kay
California has experienced an unprecedented number of fire events that have been described as megafires. A number of these wildfires burned through vegetation types that are broadly categorized as conifer forest or mixed hardwood forest. This talk, coming on the third anniversary of the Thomas Fire—arguably one of California’s first megafires—will focus on our area’s chaparral and how