From the Field: Scaling Recovery Efforts for Southern California's Fire-Scarred Ecosystems
Postdoctoral researcher Lucia Layritz recently traveled to Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and Channel Islands National Park as part of an expansion of our ongoing collaboration with the National Park Service (NPS) to improve wildfire recovery. Following recent fires in both parks, Lucia wanted to see the landscape and vegetation ecology firsthand and meet with newer collaborators who are eager to use our decision support tools (co-designed with NPS) for modeling and planning.
Our Disturbance Recovery Tool helps NPS make quicker and more informed decisions following a wildfire to support vegetation recovery. Relatedly, our Josh modeling software offers a powerful interface for vegetation modeling (critical for fire recovery) for land managers with or without technical backgrounds. Both tools are open source and can run on the users’ laptop or desktop - no downloads or external servers required. While NPS is actively using both tools for recovery planning in Joshua Tree National Park and surrounding areas, there is a need to scale this technology for more arid, fire-prone landscapes in California and across the western US.
Expanding Tech for more Users
At Santa Monica Mountains, Lucia toured the perimeters of three previous fires: the Springs Fire (2013), the Woolsey Fire (2018), and the Palisades Fire (2025). In the Channel Islands, she surveyed the site of a fire from last month on Santa Rosa Island, where a forest of the endemic Torrey Pine was significantly impacted. She also visited an older burn site from 2018 on Santa Cruz Island. Lucia discussed an upcoming workshop series on Josh with local NPS program managers and ecologists, which DSE will lead to train new collaborators on the software. Our goal is that by the end of these workshops, park officials can apply their scientific knowledge to our technical infrastructure and leverage the open model to these local ecosystems.
Learning from the Land & our Collaborators
Lucia observed that Mediterranean shrublands are remarkably fire-adapted. Just a month after the Santa Rosa fire, wildflowers and native grasses were already emerging and shrubs were resprouting vigorously. In sites that burned 10 to 15 years ago, the vegetation had fully recovered. Although invasive species including grasses and fennel remain a persistent challenge in both parks, the restoration of native vegetation is even more striking.
Many open questions about long-term vegetation recovery remain for these landscapes, and there are too few systematic tools for exploring them. That's precisely the gap that tools like Josh are built to fill.
Lucia's visit reinforced why our partnership with NPS matters. The success of applying the latest data science tools to solve environmental challenges hinges on strong, on-the-ground collaborations. With needs for better decision support tools mounting, Josh’s real-world application offers compelling opportunities to scale vegetation recovery in these parks and beyond.
