This is How a Forest Fixes Itself

You’ll either smile or grimmace at parts of this report, but it does show the very different natural regeneration after two fires. In both cases, the USFS apparently allowed nature to take sits course. Kudos to KRCR News Channel 7, Redding, California, for doing the story, “This is how a forest fixes itself.”

“The Oregon Fire of 2001, just outside of Weaverville, left devastation on the landscape that has yet to grow back 14 years later.

“In comparison to the Eagle Fire of 2008, in a similar region of Trinity County, this wildfire burned large patches of landscape, but the forest is already starting to rebuild itself with trees and shrubs 7 years later.

“Why is it that the landscape of the Eagle Fire is healing in half the time as the Oregon Fire landscape?”

2 thoughts on “This is How a Forest Fixes Itself”

  1. If we provide favorable conditions to our forests despite occurrence of any catastrophic activity, it is able to regain its original features and characteristics naturally.

    Reply
    • I don’t agree. It is well documented that when fires burn hot enough to remove all organic matter from soils, it will take a correspondingly long time to rebuild that soil component, so that the destroyed forest can return. Also, when a seed source has been removed, ponderosa pine seeds, for example, it may take decades to centuries before trees can “migrate” back into the burned areas. (Pine seeds are relatively heavy, and do not fly far from the tree.)

      Reply

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