Prescribed burning impacts on some coastal British Columbia ecosystems

Prescribed burning is widely used as a forest management tool; however, its long-term impacts on site productivity must be better understood to meet planned burn objectives. MacMillan Bloedel (now Western Forest Products Inc.) and the Canadian Forest Service began a study of the effects of prescribed burning on fuel consumption, tree growth and site nutrition in 1985. This paper quantifies the impacts of fires of different severity on woody debris and soil organic horizons. Three low-severity spring burns, two high-severity fall burns and two unburned controls were established on three sites near Port Alberni, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Most of the low-severity spring burn area was accidentally…