Andy Kerr reviews a book by Richard L. Hutto, A Beautifully Burned Forest: Learning to Celebrate Severe Forest Fire.
Severe, stand-replacing fires are indeed beneficial, in many cases, and some forest types require them. However, we’re seeing far too many such fires, and they often are very large megafires. The 2020 Labor Day fires, for instance, burned about one million acres, much of it at high intensity. We’ll see more large fires in the future, and that’s not something to celebrate. … Steve
“Figure 1. A freshly burned forest. Though it looks like hell to the mis-trained eye, it is nonetheless the necessary and inevitable beginning of the next forest. Just give it a bit of time, and neither salvage log nor replant it. Source: Wikipedia.”
Yup if we can wait hundreds of years for seedlings to get started. (seed bearing trees moving in from the edges through time).
If we don’t care about soils or watersheds..
Or current and near-term wildlife habitat.
I guess my eye is “mis-trained.”
PLUS, there is no evidence that an unmanaged burned area will ever return to old growth, especially in this human-dominated world. Many people wrongly trust that “Natural Succession” will restore forests, somehow, automatically. Even Wilderness Areas and National Parks cannot escape this eventuality, in the reality of today.
On severe fires burn areas, there is evidence that the areas will in many cases will never return to forested landscapes, let alone old growth.
If you don’t have soil or a seed source available, and are not in a Serotinous tree landscape, it will be thousands of years before trees show up on the landscape.
This could be a simple mapping exercise to identify the extent of the problem.
It is not just the high-intensity fires. Today’s fires with low to moderate intensity kill a lot of trees, but leaves the dead fuels in place. There is often significant regen, after these kinds of fires. The next inevitable fire that comes through will probably burn more intensely, killing whatever was currently growing. In essence, “Natural Succession” is returned back to ‘square one’. We have excellent examples of this in National Parks.
However, yes, the soil damages can be observed and even quantified. When dry soils no longer have organic matter, plants struggle to survive the hot and dry summers, with no shade.
Jonas, I’ve observed that in eastern Oregon The first fire came through and took off the overstory leaving lots of fuel on the ground. Lodgepole regenerated in its usual robust way, around the jackstrawed fallen trees. Until they were 10 feet tall (no cones) and then another fire moved through the downed material toasting all the LPPs along the way. I don’t know what happened after that. And no seed-bearing adults for a long way.
Sharon, that’s my biggest concern with these returns, as you described. I don’t think the FS is staffed, nor has the infrastructure to reforest large (or small) burns. Some Regions do a pretty good job, mostly thru contracting services for seedlings; the Apaches in AZ are one such group.
I saw the ‘25 accomplishments and figured most of the reforestation was certifying naturals. Most likely the same antics as counting “fuel’s treated” acres. Western WY seems to be suffering the same fate as Regions 2 and 3 for nuked burn scars….. Pretty sad.
I’ve also seen a different ‘glitch’ in “Natural Succession”. A fire happens during a drought, when the true firs are having a bonkers ‘cone year’. During the following winter, that huge cone crop re-seeded the burn immediately. The end result, decades later, was a stagnant pure stand of flammable white/red fir. In the early 90s, there was significant bark beetle mortality. It was thinned around 2002, then burned up in the Caldor Fire. While was a ‘succession’, it wasn’t anywhere close to the academic version of “Natural Succession”.
Jonas, my recollection of many of those “succession” ideas was that they were based on wetter areas, where BBs, wildfire, and lack of seed sources from wildfires are not so much of a thing.
At what point does failing to manage forestland with much of anything but stand replacement fire become simply another characteristic of a wasteful U.S. society?
Highest intake of sugars and fats, 40-60% of our food supply ends up in landfills.
5% of the global population, consume 24% of the world’s energy.
Preserve forests for fire experiments, become one of the world’s largest importers of softwood.