A New Forest Fire Paradigm: The Need for High-Severity Fire

A new article by the Wild Nature Institute's Monica Bond and colleagues argues for a change in the current forest fire paradigm.  Currently, the common view holds that severe forest fires are always harmful.  Bond and her co-authors propose a new paradigm that embraces the ecological necessity of severe forest fire.

"Severe fire is a natural element of healthy, dynamic forest ecosystems in Canada and the western U.S., as it has been for eons. Indeed, fire is as essential as rainfall and sunlight to many forest species," said Monica Bond, the lead author of the paper.  "Old growth forests were once viewed as decadent and were logged almost to oblivion before their ecological value was recognized.  It is time for severely burned forests to be given the same recognition as essential elements of a functioning and healthy ecosystem."

The article appeared in the latest edition of the Wildlife Professional, a magazine published by the Wildlife Society, the national professional association of wildlife biologists.

click to read the article on wildlife society site

Wood-boring beetles have special sensory organs to detect heat and smoke from a forest fire.

This black-backed woodpecker forages on beetle larvae that live within severely burned trees. The species is strongly associated with severely burned forests in the western U.S. and Canada.

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