Wildfire and the Birth of a Forest//
There was a time, before our ancestors smashed together flint and steel, when they felt the cold lack of fire in their lives. Before they learnt to make it themselves, humans would have relied on lightning fire, which struck the earth sporadically and razed grasses and forests. They understood the huge value of this catastrophe: by scooping up burning coals and nurturing the flames, humans suddenly had a guaranteed source of light and warmth. Fire gave us the ability to cook food and clear land, and became central in many rituals and traditions. Instead of seeing forest fires as a bad thing, ancient humans learned to appreciate them.
Yet, it wasn’t just humans who benefited from these natural phenomena.
…show more content…
Their seeds prefer to grow on open, sunny ground, which pits saplings against each other as each one tries growing straighter and faster than its neighbors to get more light. Over time, generations of slender, lofty lodgepoles form an umbrella-like canopy that shades the forest floor below. But as the trees’ pine cones mature to release their twirling seeds, this signals a problem for the forest’s future: very few of these seeds will germinate in the cool, sunless shade created by their towering …show more content…
Flames ravage the thick understory provided by Douglas firs, a species that’s more shade-tolerant and so able to thrive under the canopy of lodgepole pines. The fire uses these smaller trees like a stepladder to reach the higher canopy of old lodgepole pines. That ignites a tremendous crown fire, reaching temperatures of 115 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit that signal the moment when the serotinous seeds can finally be freed: the cones erupt, spewing out millions of seeds which are carried by the hot air to form new forests elsewhere. After the fire, carbon rich soils and an open, sunlit landscape also help lodgepole seeds germinate quickly and sprout in abundance. From the necessary death of the old forest, comes the birthday of the