Forest recovery after a fire

[4wanderingeyes]

I had a smallish fire roll through my woods yesterday, it burned a couple acres of my woods, and part of a food plot. My question, how long does it take for the woods to come back after the fire? Will it flourish this year, next?

I had planted some white cedars on the sides of my food plot, and the fire got to them, some are about half burned, will they survive?

 

[Jerry-B-WI]

Growing up I lived in town and the city fire department would burn the dead grass in the fields around town every spring. The new growth would come back like gang busters. By the end of summer you couldn't tell it was burned off in the spring. One of those fields bordered our back yard. My dad had planted a cedar hedge along the lot line bordering the field. One year the fire department let the burning get a little to close the the hedge and the cedars were singed. Pa was pissed and complained to the city, they apologized. The cedars eventually recovered and looked good.

I think your food plot should be OK, maybe even benefit from the burning, the cedars , depending on how badly they are burned will probably recover.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

Luckily the ground was still wet, and it just burned leaves, and some ground lying Timbers. The cedar trees are varying degrees between these pictures. I planted them last spring, so starting over new wouldnt set me back much, but to find some this time of year and have the time to plant them. There are 10 on this side that damaged.

Also some American plums got burned as well.

 

[cbw]

You will be fine. We burned this timber 4 weeks ago. Love having the coral berry/buckbrush and MFR knocked back and seeing all the forbs popping up. Turkeys love it. Prescribed fire is a good tool in the habitat toolbelt.

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[Brian662]

Prescribed fire isn't something that is used readily in northern states because the growing season is months shorter than the central tier and southern states. Looking at your location, it probably did more harm than good, from what I've seen and heard. Hopefully I'm wrong for your sake.

 

[rocksnstumps]

Think you will be ok since you mentioned ground was wet underneath and probably not a super hot fire. If you have really poor soils can take a lot longer than a year or two to recover and green back up but see hardwoods in your pictures and probably soils are not too bad.

Have some family land involved in a fire that burned hundreds of acres almost 20 yrs ago. Poor soil, was a pine plantation for a reason. Acres of trees cooked with the hot ground fire fueled with high winds. The tops were not burned but over 1000 cord died within a month or two and were removed later. An extremely hot fire can kill trees even if crowns not burned. Some areas got replanted but in those were planting failed due to drought it was over 10 yrs before some recovery happened with the poor soils present.

Don't think that will be the case with yours. But might be more than just a year and everything is just great.

 

[Bill]

Any idea who started it? I’d be asking them to replant.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

Any idea who started it? I’d be asking them to replant.

It was done by the idiot land owner, me. Hot ashes from cleaning out the wood boiler. I shut it down Saturday, cleaned the ashes out Wednesday, and put them in a metal trailer. Friday I went out and checked them, they felt cool, so I went out and started to spread them in my food plot, and I felt heat after I tossed out a couple shovels full, so I stopped, spread out what I already tossed out, and walked over it a few times, sat out there for about 15 minutes, no smoke. I went back inside, and fed my dog, took the dog out, and walked out to the mail box, maybe 20 minutes have passed, I didn’t see any smoke. I brought my dog back inside, and about 10 minutes later, I looked out and saw smoke. I ran out and started putting it out with a shovel. I got the majority of it out myself, then the fire department came in with a dozer and made a fire break around it.

Nobody’s fault but my own. Ashes felt cool, until I dug to the bottom of the pile. Things could have been much worse, so I am thankful for that. I am sure the fire department will send me a nice little bill. And the idiot that started the fire, will for sure be paying to replant.

 

[BuckSutherland]

I think you will be ok. Could be worse and you could be burnin down the greatest country on earth like Joe Scranton from Dip$hit, PA. He seems to cope with ice cream, kid sniffing, watching people plummet off C130s, presiding over 3 of the biggest bank failures in American history, 10% inflation or trying to start WW3.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

It doesn't look hot enough to have killed the roots, so I bet your plum will live even though the top is likely dead.

I'm not sure about white cedars though, I don't know if they naturally do well with fire or not. I'd guess they will die, but maybe you will get lucky.

 

[Ruffdude]

Any updates?
By now it's probably greened up pretty good. How are the cedars doing?

 

[4wanderingeyes]

Any updates?
By now it's probably greened up pretty good. How are the cedars doing?

Everything is pretty green. The cedars are toast, and I haven’t looked at the plums, the last I looked less then half of them had any green buds on them. I will go look sometime this week, but the damn mosquitoes are relentless this year.

 

[T-Max]

Look for the plums to root sucker after a fire. The tops may be toast, but the roots should be fine.


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[4wanderingeyes]

Look for the plums to root sucker after a fire. The tops may be toast, but the roots should be fine.


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I went and took a quick look, ferns are going strong, the plum trees are indeed suckering, so that is good to see. The white cedars are toast.