Fire use can mitigate wildfire derived C losses but has negative or neutral impacts on soil C stocks
Wildfires consume around of 0.5M ha of forest every year in Europe. Large or extreme wildfire events, occurring not only in fire-prone areas, pointed out the necessity to move from an strategy based on fire suppression to an Integrated Fire Management Strategy (IFM), for planning and operational systems, aiming at minimizing fire damage and maximizing its ecological and economic benefits (Nebot et al., 2024 and references here in). Although out of control sever wildfires can negatively impact on physico-chemical and biological soil characteristics and provide a tipping point for degradation of forest ecosystems, especially in new-fire areas, fire can also be used as an ecologically sound practice to create more resistant and resilient forests to future disturbances with low or neutral effects on soil function (Mäkipää et al. 2023).
HoliSoils results show that prescribed burnings increase the resistance to possible wildfires and to sever droughts (Vilà-Vilardell et al. 2024, 2023), but with neutral or negatively impacts on soil C stocks depending on the intensity. Logically, low-intense burnings cause smaller impacts on soil health than sever wildfires. Current knowledge on the effects of different intensities of fire should be incorporated into the decision-making process of an IFM strategy to inform both preventive actions and post-fire restoration.
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References
Nebot, E.; Rosell, M.; Valor T.; Estivill, L.; Casals, P.; Galarza, J.; Stoof, C.; Alemany, A.; Arilla, E.; Bachfischer, M.; Castellarnau, X.; Cespedes, J.; Castellnou, M.; Castellví, J.; Dalmau, E.; Ferragut, A.; Larrañaga, A.; Lleonart G.; Miralles, M.; Pagès, J.; Palacios, A.; Pallàs, J.; Piqué M. 2024. Integrated fire management model: demonstration, training and piloting activities, including new-fire prone areas. FIRE-RES Deliverable D1.9. 49 pages. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.11950636
Vilà-Vilardell, L., De Cáceres, M., Piqué, M., Casals, P., 2023. Prescribed fire after thinning increased resistance of sub-Mediterranean pine forests to drought events and wildfires. Forest Ecology and Management 527, 120602.
Vilà-Vilardell, L., Valor, T., Hood-Nowotny, R., Schott, K., Piqué, M., Casals, P., 2024. Thinning followed by slash burning enhances growth and reduces vulnerability to drought for Pinus nigra. Ecological Applications e3030.
This article was written by Pere Casals Tortras (Centre de Ciència i Tecnologia Forestal de Catalunya).
