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Fire: Friend or Foe?

© Diana Tesky

Fire! Fire! Those words can often instill panic and fear in our minds. We think of the devastating results fires can have, the lives they can claim and the destruction they leave behind. Now with the fires that took place this summer in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and South Dakota, fire, and fire management is on the forefront of the minds of many an ecologist. Just what role does fire play in an ecosystem?

Is fire a destructive menace that must be kept in strict control, or does it serve a useful purpose? In the interests of forest health, the quality of habitat for wildlife, the productivity of the soil, and the aesthetically pleasing result of healthy trees and an abundance of wildlife, fire does indeed serve a useful purpose. Fire is a natural rejuvenator, helping to curb disease, break down underbrush to be recycled, improve the quality of vegetation, and give the forest a fresh new start.

In nature everything goes through cycles. Plants and animals live, die, and return to the soil and then other plants and animals go through the same process. The same is true on a larger scale, with the cycle of succession. Grasslands and forests can complete cycles of succession, with groups of plant species replacing others, until those also are replaced. Fire is a tool to hinder further stages of succession (ie. keeping a pine forest as a pine forest)or revert succession back to a previous stage (ie. scrub areas to grasslands).

Fire can also cause a mixture of plant and animal species to be present when fire burns areas on a smaller scale, as the burned areas may be replaced with a greater number of a species other than the dominant species of the area. This mixture is important in disease control (as diseases will often affect one species and not another) and is important on the health of the wildlife. Many animals thrive with a combination of vegetation and other animals present, a natural system of checks and balances.

Fire also breaks down and returns nutrients to the soil, enriching it and causing more fertile growth.

Fire need not be dreaded when in the right context. Fire can be an important player in forming and shaping, and even improving the ecosystem!

For more on the role of fire, try these links:

Idaho's Changing Forest Landscape (http://www.valley-internet.net/php/nwtwr...

Overriding the Complexity of Natural Systems: two examples of the revenge of nature (http://www.consecol.org/Journal/vol1/iss...

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