August 14, 2008: Recovery & Renewal

Fire is one of our best friends... and worst enemies.
Mother nature uses lightning fires to renew grasslands and forests, recycling deadwood, opening seeds, and making room for new growth. However, people cause an awful lot of fires through carelessness, also.
I've driven through burned areas in Canada and the US, sometimes just months after the fires had blacked the landscape, and was amazed how quickly greenery was sprouting.

As these pictures show, the forest will come back.




But this fire in AZ, happened in June of 1990. After 18 years, it's got a long way to go. Be careful.

amazing how SLOWLY greenery is sprouting.
after almost 20 years IŽd expect a young but decent forest...

yeah, but that's arizona. The whole state's dead anyway, all desert. I'm surprised anything grew back.

i grew up in oregon and heard the timber industry talk about how forests are just really big crops, like corn or alfalfa. but i don't know of any corn that takes decades to ripen. forests ecosystems live on a much longer continuum than nearly anything else humans "harvest." they take so much longer to recover & restabalize.

Apparently that also means they are a "carbon sink" for that much longer, making agricultural farming a way to fight global warming.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ibram yeah, but that's arizona. The whole state's dead anyway, all desert. I'm surprised anything grew back.

The hell you will... build me a pyramid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce The hell you will... build me a pyramid.

Sure, Ill just walk this path through the water... HEY, what the... blub blub

Let her people go.

There is no Renewal!

The bush in Australia is well adapted to recovering from bushfire as its so damn hot and dry here they happen all the time. Actually several species of plant such as the banksia require fire to germinate new seeds.

Here are some photos of regrowth after a bushfire in NE Victoria around 3 months after the actual fire:

http://www.pbase.com/greytails/bushf...06_ne_victoria

Quote:

Originally Posted by Easy The bush in Australia is well adapted to recovering from bushfire as its so damn hot and dry here they happen all the time. Actually several species of plant such as the banksia require fire to germinate new seeds. Here are some photos of regrowth after a bushfire in NE Victoria around 3 months after the actual fire: http://www.pbase.com/greytails/bushf...06_ne_victoria

We drove up the Al-Can highway in 1985. About the time we came to the Yukon Territory we came around a bend and were greeted by an obviously burned forest. We mused that it looked like the fire had happened recently in the last year or perhaps two at most. Continuing a ways farther we came to a huge bill board on an overlook. It described the "x Fire" (forget the name) occurred in 1956, about 30 years earlier!!! Bummer.

Did you notice a partially burned Dodge Van at the burned out service station? I made a metal note of it, as a possible emergency parts source for the one I was driving, about 10 years before you went.

In January of 1991 we honeymooned in Yellowstone. This was after the fires of 1988 which were huge news because they came after the forest service realized fire suppresion was counter productive. Unfortunately many years of suppresion let the fuel accumulate and the fires were much bigger than they anticipated. I don't think we've digitized any of those pictures. It'll be neat to see how the landscape has recovered when we go out there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce Did you notice a partially burned Dodge Van at the burned out service station? I made a metal note of it, as a possible emergency parts source for the one I was driving, about 10 years before you went.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheldonrs You'll have to get the OK from my union rep. His name's Moses. He's the one over there with the big dick.