Conclusions
Hypothesis B: “Wildfires sterilize
the soil and cause irreversible soil damage—therefore reducing long-term productivity.”
Hypothesis A: “Because thinning
reduces fuels, it also
reduces fire movement and severity.”
reduces fire movement and severity.”
Major conclusions:
Thinning alone did not reduce fire damage to mature trees in this case.
Changes is long-term productivity will be known only after
tracking recovery
(the vegetation is showing remarkable adaptation to fire and
soil damage will likely be mitigated
by some of these adaptations).
Some soils were greatly affected and perhaps some surfaces were
temporarily
sterilized.
Hypothesis C:
“Wildfires increase biodiversity.”
Relative to ongoing background (unburned) changes, wildfire
increased understory
species only slightly in Control treatments, decreased species in the Douglas-fir treatments, and had
no effect on the other treatments—suggesting that local species are highly adapted to even
intense wildfire.
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