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Sybille Haeussler on why fire is good for forests

a lush green forest swells with verdant foliage, rotting stumps, and devil's club. On a lone tree trunk you can see 'chicken of the woods', an edible wild fungi in bright orange and yellow.
Canada's forests need protecting, and fire is an important part of the cycle of growth. Photo by Pamela Haasen
Pamela Haasen - CICK - Smithers • BC | 21-04-2023
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Bulkley Valley Research Centre researcher Sybille Haeussler's career has been dedicated to the health of Canada's forests. Her area of study are forest ecology, silvicultre – the growing and cultivation of trees, and biodiversity. 

Haeussler is concerned about the future of forest health and was part of a team of researchers that wrote The Response of Ecosystems and Plants to Fire, a project she worked on with Bulkley Valley Researchers Evelyn Hamilton, Reg Newman, and Julia Chandler in 2017 and 2018. The aim of the research was about the effects of wildfire and prescribed fire on fuels, soils, vegetation and tree growth since at least the 1970s. 

"There was an emphasis on collecting data from the past 50 years that had not been digitized and were at risk of being lost," Haeussler told CICK News.

The study confirms the importance of fire in shaping plant communities and indicate a high resilience to fire, promoting the benefits of the use of cultural fire to encourage growth and regeneration.

Cultural fire is used to clear overstocked and thick foliage and open areas in the canopy. Open areas in the canopy allow sunlight to reach the forest floor, allowing understory plants to grow. These areas of greater biodiversity are often referred to as habitat mosaics, because of the resemblance to a mosaic.
According to the report, as of the turn of this century, Canada's forests no longer act as a net carbon sink. In 2015, Canada's forests contributed 237 megatonnes more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than they absorbed; and the 2017 GHG emissions due to wildfire in British Columbia alone are estimated at 3x that of the previous highest emissions in 2014.

The research found from the decades of collected data on the benefits of fire for forests creates a more fire-forward approach for forest managers in British Columbia in an effort to save the biodiversity we have in the northern interior forests before it's too late.

Haeussler encourages everyone to "get out into the forest and walk slowly. Don't rush through your hike: stop and enjoy what's around you this Earth Day."

Listen to the full interview with Sybille Haeussler below:

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