California Wildfires Not Unusual
By Paul Homewood
Two recently published scientific studies add to a growing body of research on the ecological importance of forest fires, even severe ones, to the integrity of fire-dependent forests in the western U.S, particularly California’s Sierra region.
One study, published in the Natural Areas Journal, documented the ecological importance of forest fires in regenerating unique habitat for numerous plants and wildlife in the Sierra, including rare and threatened ones. The other published in Ecosphere compared historical records of forest fires to today’s fires and concluded that today’s fires in the Sierra are burning in size and intensity similar to the way fires once burned.
According to Dominick DellaSala, Chief Scientist of the Ashland-Oregon based Geos Institute and lead author of “Complex early seral forests of the Sierra Nevada: What are they and how can they be managed for ecological integrity?,” “Post-fire landscapes are often falsely portrayed as “moonscapes,” but they actually have some of the highest levels of plant and wildlife diversity of any Sierra forest type with levels comparable to what we see in the region’s more appreciated old-growth forests.”
A key finding of DellaSala’s research showed that post-fire landscapes are rich in large dead trees (snags) that connect a regenerating forest to the eventual old-growth forest that develops over time via the process of forest succession. Imperiled wildlife that depend on snags as “biological legacies” include the Black-backed Woodpecker, a fire dependent indicator species under consideration for listing as threatened due to dramatic losses of its post-fire habitat from logging, and the California Spotted Owl that forages in post-fire landscapes also damaged by post-fire logging.
DellaSala’s findings are relevant to controversial post-fire logging projects that inevitably follow most forest fires, he added “post-fire logging and related tree planting removes the very components that forests need to regenerate themselves and this is not “restorative” as claimed.” DellaSala was also lead author on a letter signed by over 200 scientists last January that urged the Forest Service to refrain from massive post-fire logging in the aftermath of the 2013 Rim fire on the Stanislaus National Forest.
Another study, “Historical forest structure and fire in Sierran mixed-conifer forests reconstructed from General Land Office Survey data” found that severe fires have long been a natural feature of Sierra Nevada mixed-conifer forests. According to William Baker, Emeritus Professor of Ecology at the University of Wyoming, “Contrary to what some believe, fires in Sierran mixed-conifers once did, and still do, burn in a pattern of mixed severities that include large patches, up to several thousand acres, of fire-killed trees as part of the natural fire cycle in this region.”
Baker tested prevailing assumptions about uncharacteristic fires by examining the US government’s General Land Office surveys from 1865 to 1885 and in these surveys examined the recorded forest composition by early surveyors as it related to historical fire influences.
Baker found that there is actually currently less high-severity fire in Sierra forests now than there was prior to the historical surveys, and noted that the current deficit of high-severity fire can be detrimental to forest ecosystems. Logging proposals to reduce fuels and fire severity would actually reduce, not restore, historical forest heterogeneity important to wildlife and resiliency.
Both studies reflect a growing scientific awareness of the ecological role of forest fires throughout the West, particularly severe ones. For example, a team of eleven fire scientists in February 2014 that included both DellaSala and Baker used a variety of research methods and found similar historical evidence of high-severity fires throughout fire-dependent forests in the western US and Canada. Their findings were published in PLoS One and run counter to the widely held assumptions that most forest fires today are burning uncharacteristically severe.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Reblogged this on the WeatherAction Blog.
A number of plants rely on fire to release their seeds, eliminate competition or supply a rich layer of nutrient filled ash. One example is the jack pine, found mostly in the very northern parts of central and eastern US and Canada. The heat from the fire causes the cones to open and release their seeds.
http://creationrevolution.com/plants-that-need-fire-to-survive/
Thanks, Paul. This is a very good article.
It makes clear how little most of us know about nature.
It would be funny, if it were not so sad, that good intentioned efforts to “help” nature can result in damaging it. Yes, sad, but now so common.
In my far-off youth this type of vegetation was called “Fire climax vegetation” which was common in forests where the older trees blocked the light from the forest floor until the lightning caused fires cleared them and the smaller plants regenerated. The seeds of trees took advantage of the fertilising ash to start a new round of growth until the next fire climax. Siberia was always mentioned for examples of this type of cycle of conifers Deciduous forests were not usually included except for the lighter types of growth like birch and willow.. This theory explained how forests grew and spread after the Ice sheets retreated and periglacial swamps dried out.
did a 6.5 mile hike trough Muir woods in California, USA today (well most of it away from the crowds… and we entered through the back trails so you don’t have to pay $7 a pop…) but the main tourist trail weaving through the impressive redwoods (not nearly as big as those in Northern California, where you can drive a car through them) has educational signs about the forest, sequoias, and forest fires. The latter read something like this:
“No forest fires for over 150 years in Muir woods (if you continue reading you then understand how bad that actually yes…) But, in a stable and healthy forest system, fire returns nutrients to the soil as it burns decayed leaves, bark, and other material on the forest floor—in the process reducing fuel buildup for the next season. Fire regulates insects, pests, sick trees (which are often hosts for pests and diseases) reducing the spread of the diseases and reducing insect outbreak. Fire incinerates brushy undergrowth and allowes sunlight to reach the ground. Fire prepares a nursery for new generations of red wood trees. After a fire, red wood seeds are dispersed by surviving mature trees. The soil is recharged, refueled, and shrubs and other competition are set back, so the odds are maximized that a redwood seed will germinate, grow and mature.”
Forest fires are only bad for those who build their house in the forest.
ps: if you ask people what the trees grow from, most think it’s from the soil…. RRRRRRR, WRONG!!! It grows from the CO2 in the air, it only needs the nutrients from the soil for aiding the photosynthesis and water uptake.