Fires used to be much more common - like every 15 years

[Glacier]

Researchers found fire evidence averaging 15-year intervals in research forest but none after 1943

New research from the University of British Columbia (UBC) indicates wildfires used to be a lot more common in the Cariboo.

Wesley Brooke is a Master of Science student at UBC who for his thesis has been studying the Knife Creek Block of the Alex Fraser Research Forest, which is on the east hand side of Highway 97 just north of Knife Creek Road and the 140 Mile area.

He’s been examining trees for fire scarring. While the data gets less reliable the further back in time because fewer trees date back that far, Brooke found evidence of 22 fires between 1619 and 1943. The time between the fires varied but averaged one every 15 years.

http://www.wltribune.com/news/fires-use ... -research/

[tsayta]

Brilliant article really. I'm now wondering about the natural cycle of thing. Firstly we are artificially suppressing the fires... Which leads to a build up of fuels. But then once a fire finally does sweep through, we quickly reforest with conifers. What damage is done when we completely skip mother nature's step of pioneer species first, then after years comes the conifers?