What is chaparral?

Dave at Ztuff asks, and then posts when John Krist at the Ventura County Star answers.

In some coastal counties of Central and Southern California, the change has been particularly dramatic. In Ventura County, for example, what the researchers refer to as the "fire rotation interval" -- the time it takes wildfires to burn acreage equivalent to the entire brush-covered area of the county -- dropped from 121 years before 1950 to just 34 after. In Riverside County, the interval fell from 225 years to 38.

When fires occur more frequently than before, several things happen, Davis said. In some cases, fire may sweep through an area so soon after the previous blaze that the most recent crop of chaparral plants has not yet matured enough to produce seeds, preventing regeneration.