HOW FIRES DESTROY OUR FORESTS 



333 



DENSE REPRODUCTION 



Douglas lir, noble fir. Western white pine, and hemlock 40 years old, 

 following a single tire tha* dt-scroyed a mature stand. 



areas in the Pacific Northwest forest region now. 



The next or fourth step in forest depletion comes 

 when a fire runs through a stand of young growth and 

 leaves patches unburned. A sparse stand of young 

 seedlings in brush or in open burns is too often con- 

 sidered of little or no value. Such seedlings should be 

 regarded as the future seed trees of those areas and 

 should be protected in order that the areas may be 

 restocked again. This process of reforestation, however 

 slow, will eventually restock an area if fires are kept 

 out. Surface fires kill such seedlings and leave the area 

 as a brush tangle without any chance for natural 

 reforestation. 



There is another stage in which single seed trees or 

 groups of trees were left by 

 the fire that killed the for- 

 est, but in which all repro- 

 duction has been destroyed 

 by subsequent fires. This 

 may be considered as the 

 fifth stage, and it is the last 

 one in which the forest has 

 any chance of natural re- 

 seeding. During the process 

 of destruction in a forest 

 single trees or groups of 

 trees sometimes escape. 

 These remain as outposts 

 around which a forest may 

 again develop. Seeding by 

 wind-blown seed occurs for 

 short distances only from 

 the parent tree. Surface 



fires will usually not kill these single veteran trees ; but 

 repeated burning prevents seedlings jrom getting estab- 

 lished around them, and each fire claims some of the 

 seed trees. Wherever one of these trees is removed by 

 fire or windthrow another section is added to the 

 brush area. By the occurrence of periodic fires the entire 

 area soon becomes a nonproducing, though still a poten- 



THE FOREST GIVES WAY TO FIRE 



Area burned over repeatedly. Only an occasional seedling of the most 

 fire-resistant species, lodgepole pine or white bark pine, left. 



VARIOUS STAGES OF FOREST DESTRUCTION BY FIRE 



Scattered stand of a young growth that followed the destruction of a young 

 forest which had reached seeding age. Rainier National Forest, near Mt. 

 Adams, South Central Washington. 



tial, forest area. Many such brush fields occur now in 

 Southern Oregon and in the Cascade Mountains of 

 Oregon and Washington. 



The sixth successive stage from the mature forest is 

 the result of the consistent recurrence of fires which 

 inevitably reduce the forest to a brush area. The pres- 

 ence of this almost impenetrable mass of brush has led 

 to the attempt to clear the area by fire. Usually the 



reasons for the presence of 

 the brush or the ultimate 

 result of clearing the area 

 by burning are not con- 

 sidered. The very evident 

 fact that the land is clear 

 of brush after a severe fire 

 is considered sufficient basis 

 for using fire as the clear- 

 ing agent. That the fire 

 may only intensify the 

 stand of brush and post- 

 pone the time when the 

 land will be reclaimed by 

 the forest is not given any 

 weight in the justification 

 of its use. Examinations 

 of brush areas after several 

 fires show that some of the 



