Logging-era slash fires replaced red and white pine with aspen, birch, and jack pine
Evidence
Most of the older stands were “high-graded” for the best pine, and little else was cut. But state laws required slash burning to reduce the fire hazard, and most cutover areas eventually burned, often eliminating white or red pine seed trees and reproduction. Where such burning occurred, major changes in stand composition often resulted because seed sources were altered, and no reforestation work was done. Quaking aspen and paper birch or jack pine usually replaced the red and white pine in such areas because of their ability to reproduce vegetatively (aspen and birch) or from seed on firekilled trees (jack pine). — Miron L. Heinselman, Fire in the Virgin Forests of the…, 63
Categorization
- XREF: Land-use change as disturbance explaining today’s broadleaf-jackpine dominance; supports disturbance-history reading. — connects to: Beaver depend on fire-created aspen-birch stands within reach of waterways. — Miron L. Heinselman, Fire in the Virgin Forests of the…, 427; Legendary Lake States fires burned slashy cutover land, not virgin forest. — Miron L. Heinselman, Fire in the Virgin Forests of the…, 165; No large BWCA burns since 1936 already eliminated early postfire communities. — Miron L. Heinselman, Fire in the Virgin Forests of the…, 413 (+2 more)
Related
- Jack pine, birches, and aspen colonize fire and logging damaged soils (similarity 0.87)
- Beaver depend on fire-created aspen-birch stands within reach of waterways. (similarity 0.86)
- Legendary Lake States fires burned slashy cutover land, not virgin forest. (similarity 0.84)
- Indigenous people deliberately burned jack pine for blueberries (similarity 0.82)
- No large BWCA burns since 1936 already eliminated early postfire communities. (similarity 0.81)
- Predicted jack pine succession to other types never fully completes even after centuries. (similarity 0.81)
- Firebreaks structured which species occupied which landscape positions (similarity 0.80)
- Surface fires returned every 36 years on average in surviving pine stands. (similarity 0.80)
- Virtually every BWCA virgin forest stand burned since 1595. (similarity 0.79)
- Tree species evolved distinct reproductive adaptations to fire (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Jack pine, birches, and aspen colonize fire and logging damaged soils
#corroborates(0.95) — Vinson Brown, Reading the Woods, 861 - Coring dominant fire-adapted trees dates stand origin after burns.
#expands(0.72) — Miron L. Heinselman, Fire in the Virgin Forests of the…, 93