Life After a Forest Fire

  • Biologist find signs of regeneration shortly after a forest fire. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)

Forest fires capture a lot of attention and concern. Loggers worry about lost resources. People who hike and camp in the forest worry they’ll see nothing but ugly, blackened vistas for years to come. But a big fire this summer in the northwoods gives people a chance to see just how fast the forest can recover. Even as the fire still burns, foresters see signs of life. The GLRC’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Forest fires capture a lot of attention and concern. Loggers worry about lost resources.
People who hike and camp in the forest worry they’ll see nothing but ugly, blackened vistas for years
to come. But a big fire this summer in the northwoods gives people a chance to see just
how fast the forest can recover. Even as the fire still burns, foresters see signs of life.
The GLRC’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:


The Cavity Lake fire started in mid-July this summer. It turned out to be the fire people have been
worrying about for seven years. In 1999, huge straight-line winds knocked down millions
of trees. They toppled into an impassable tangle of drying fuel in and near the Boundary
Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota. Locals call it “the
blowdown.”


The Cavity Lake fire gobbled up the blown-down trees. It roared across lakes,
threatening homes and resorts.


(Sound of boat motor)


Two forest service workers hop in a small boat to document the fire and its aftermath. In
places, the fire seems to have consumed everything, down to the soil, but these two are
looking for life.


Black, powdery ash covers the ground. Burned snags, limbless trees the color of
charcoal, stand against the sky. But even here, biologist Lissa Grover can find signs of
life.


“If you look around, you can see the 20-foot tall trees that took off after the blowdown,
and a lot of them still have cones on the top, and those cones are open now, and the seeds
will fall from them into the bare soil and germinate.”


In fact, some seeds, such as Jack Pine, wait for fire to open:


“There’s a seed bank in the soil, just waiting for a disturbance like this. There’s one plant
called Bicknell’s geranium that sprouts after fire, produces flowers the second year, sets
seed. Those seeds will stay in the soil until the next fire, even if it’s 200 years from now.”


And some plants aren’t waiting for the next generation. Grasses are already pushing
green shoots through the blackened dirt.


(Sound of motor)


Our next stop is a big island. After the 1999 blowdown in northeastern Minnesota, the
Forest Service purposely burned some areas near homes and resorts. The idea was to
reduce the amount of fuel available for wildfires. Crews set this island on fire four years
ago.


Wilderness ranger Tim McKenzie says that intentional burn saved the island, and the
resorts, from the Cavity Lake fire:


“It was traveling pretty good distances and spotting on these islands. As soon as it hit
here it just lay down.”


The blowdown fuel was already burned, and the young trees were too small and green to
keep the fire going.


Animals here are also adapted to fires. Bears, wolves and moose can walk away from a
fire. Birds can fly away or take refuge in the water.


Grover does worry about the young eagles, still in their nests and unable to fly.


“The trees are still there, the nest is still there, the adult eagles are still here, but it’s
unlikely that the juveniles in the nest survived the fire.”


But a few minutes later, we hear a sound that gladdens Grover’s heart: a young eagle
screaming for food.


(Sound of eagle)


At least one young eagle survived the Cavity Lake fire.


This land has been swept repeatedly by fires. They start, grow, move, and burn out in a
patchwork pattern. A fire last year burned until it ran into an area that had burned thirty
years ago. And here, in a thirty-year-old burn, is a picture-perfect Boundary Waters
portage.


(Sound of walking)


Young balsams scent the air with their clean, northwoods smell. Young birches lean
across the path. The moss is soft underfoot. The air is moist, and the mosquitoes are
buzzing.


Tim McKenzie fought that fire, thirty years ago. He says whenever fire burns, it’s nature
at work:


“People are used to seeing a snapshot in time. But the landscape that they’re used to
seeing became that landscape because of this process.”


And canoe outfitters here are busy planning routes that will show that landscape changing.


For the GLRC, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

Forest Land on the Market

More than a million acres are up for sale in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Two large paper companies are selling vast tracts of land. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports, it’s a trend that’s occurring throughout the country. And residents are worried that the land will be split up and developed:

Transcript

More than a million acres are up for sale in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Two large paper companies are selling vast tracts of land. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports, it’s a trend that’s occurring throughout the region. And residents are worried that will be split up and developed:


Escanaba Timber and International Paper have put more than one-point-one million acres of forestland in the Upper Peninsula on the market.


Paul DeLong is the chief forester for the state of Wisconsin. He says many timber companies across the nation are finding it’s more profitable to sell their land as real estate than maintain it for lumber. DeLong says environmentalists, state governments and timber companies are increasingly joining forces to preserve large tracts of forestland.


“So we’re seeing this convergence of interest from across the political spectrum, recognizing that maintaining larger blocks of forestland as working forests can be a real win-win from an ecological and economic and social standpoint.”


The Michigan Nature Conservancy plans to work closely with Governor Jennifer Granholm to create a conservation easement on the property when it’s sold.


For the GLRC, I’m Celeste Headlee.

Related Links

Some Success in Non-Native Beetle Fight

  • The Asian Longhorned Beetle rapidly kills hardwood trees and had plagued Chicago for some time, but officials now report that progress is being made in the fight against the beetle population. (Photo courtesy of the Michigan DNR)

The City of Chicago and the U.S. Department of Agriculture
are celebrating a small victory in their battle against an invasive pest. The Asian Longhorned Beetle arrived from China in packing materials and is responsible for destroying thousands of hardwood trees in North America. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has more:

Transcript

The City of Chicago and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are celebrating a small victory in their battle against an invasive pest. The Asian Longhorned Beetle arrived from China and is responsible for destroying thousands of hardwood trees in North America. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has more.


Chicago saw its first Asian Longhorned Beetle back in 1998. USDA and Chicago officials quickly destroyed more than fifteen hundred trees to stop the infestation. They also slapped a quarantine on the historic Ravenswood neighborhood, which prevented residents from removing tree cuttings from the area.


Now officials are lifting those restrictions, saying no one’s seen the bug in the area’s stately tree canopy for nearly two years. Joe McCarthy is the City of Chicago’s chief forester. He says a beetle hotline and a diligent press made the difference.


“There’s so much coverage of this thing, that the beetle is on TV, out in the papers, on front pages. And that’s how all the main infestations were found in the Chicago area.”


McCarthy points out that another Chicago neighborhood is still under quarantine.


The USDA is also fighting the Asian Longhorned Beetle in New York City and parts of New Jersey.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links