Burning to preserve

SFV´s conservation specialist, Per Linder, speaks.

Fire as a natural conservation tool

An important action in regard to nature conservation is the burning of forestland. Previously, forest fires were a very important ecological factor in the forest landscape. It strongly contributed to both a rich biological diversity and a great deal of variety in the types of trees and their ages. At the same rate that humans have increasingly controlled their surroundings, forest fires have decreased dramatically. Therefore, we are now trying to increase the area of burned forestland in a controlled form. This is done on land where trees have been felled in connection with reforestation work and in closed forests purely for conservation purposes. In 2004 and 2005 we burned around 80 hectares of forestland.

Conservation burning in Jämtland

At the end of August 2003, SFV carried out a so-called conservation burning at the State forest, Fiskåvattnet, in Jämtland. A conservation fire is only done for the purpose of increasing a forest´s natural value. This includes allowing the forest to develop freely without any caretaking measures. The purpose is to improve living conditions for those plants and animals that are dependent on, or benefit from, the burning. For example, there are many beetles that live in fire-damaged trees, which in turn, act as food for different species of woodpeckers.

Aspen and birch desirable

The fires lead to large numbers of dead and damaged trees, something which previously existed in large volumes in our natural forests. Today, such trees are significantly rarer due to effective use of timber and the absence of forest fires as a natural occurrence. We also hope that we will get a rich reforestation with deciduous trees such as aspen and birch, tree species that were previously controlled in this landscape.

Thorough demarcation in all directions

The fire affected an area of approximately 200 by 500 metres and we could demarcate it thanks to the fact that the area bordered a large lake on one side and a forest highway on the other. The other corners were burned off before the fire could be let loose on the central areas.

In regard to time, the fire was very intense and reached the treetops so that bursts of flame 30-40 metres high were thrown towards the sky. In more open areas where heather dominated the ground vegetation, the fire became incredibly intense.

The next day, the fire had basically stopped everywhere. The fires only continued in fallen dead trees, thicker layers of peat and in ant hills.

Proof of conservation benefits

During the years directly after the burning in Fiskåvattnet we could see that the red-listed endangered three-toed woodpecker regularly sought food by pecking among the burned trees in its hunt for bark and marrow. At a burning of land where trees had been felled in Arvliden, Sorsele, which SFV carried out in 2001, researchers from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, during an assessment in 2005, found several examples of the very rare and endangered species of beetle, Aradus angularis; an extremely rare species that is found in northern Sweden and Finland.