The benefits of forest fire

UPDATE: This entry is getting up there on Google so some background. This post is in reference to the Ham Lake fire that occurred May 2007 in the North Eastern Tip of Minnesota and traveled into Canada. To see all posts on fire, click here. Thanks for visiting!

I took this photo from the Duluth News Tribune to show a bit how fire can be a benefit to our forest even while we are in the midst of the uncertainty and distraction of it all. I think the tribune chose this photo to show the helicopter juxtaposed with the fire, but if you take a look at the fire behavior it's working just like it should.

• All the balsam have burned. These are the most explosive burners and fuel large fires like this to a great extent. Fire is their enemy, as it destroys their seeds as well as the tree. If you remember the spruce bud worm infestation in 1993 was caused by the dense population of balsam (who are killed by the bud worm) that allowed the worm to jump from tree to tree with little pause for hundreds of square miles. Fire breaks the balsam population up so the worm can not travel can cause mass kills such as 93'. In a circular fashion however, all those dead balsam probably made this fire hotter than it otherwise would be!  It will take years free from fire disturbance for the balsam to return to the numbers we see now.

• The red and white pines have survived. This is not always the case, but if a tree is lucky its thick bark protects it from the fire like armor. It is then free to drop its seeds on freshly blackened soil rich in nutrients from the ash, and the seedlings can grow with little to no competition for light for the next decade or so.








• All the birch have burned, but their roots might still be intact. This will allow them to shoot up clones of themselves very rapidly where they will not have to compete for any sunlight. It is a theory that their paper-like bark developed that way to make small fires burn more so their neighbors are killed allowing them to take control. Devious birch trees!









• I don't think I see any here, but the jack pines will flourish like mad after this fire. Unlike the red and white pine who's seeds can sprout with out fire, the jack pine needs fire's high temperatures to open its cones that are shut tight with sap. They have very thin bark so the parent will inevitably get killed, but the heat will open all their pine cones at the top of the tree and over the weeks after a fire they will shower the freshly burned forest floor with thousands and thousands of seeds. How altruistic!

• The edge of the shore here has been left un-burnt, and this is where you will find the cedar trees stretched out over the water. Cedars are very susceptible to fire so they survive by growing in swamps, on lake shores, on rocky crags and so forth. This is why some have survived since the roman empire despite their often diminutive and gnarled appearance.








There are more of course. Trees as well as animals, wild flowers, berries, and lots of birds who all have their ways to deal with the reality of an ecosystem that has been shaped by fire. So even though the fire seems awful and destructive and we are trying desperately to halt its progress as it destroys peoples homes and dreams, there is a reason to the madness and many things will come back stronger than they were last week.