Burned Forest Vs Unburned Forest

A wildfire is any instance of uncontrolled burning in grasslands, brush, or woodlands. Wildfires destroy property and valuable natural resources, and may threaten the lives of people and animals. Wildfires can occur at any time of the year, but usually occur during hot, dry weather. Wildfires are usually signaled by dense smoke which may fill the air for miles around. The National Weather Service, U.S. Forest Service, and State forestry agencies combine to give wildfire probability forecasts. Local radio and television stations broadcast information and warnings on local fire conditions. Wildfires pose an increasing threat to the residential United States. In 1987, 53,000 fires consumed more than two million acres. By October 1988, almost

Thousands upon thousands of acres are lost in forest fires every year. We always hear about the dramatic losses caused by forest fires and are often concerned by them. There are so many horrible effects from fires and most of them affect so many people. Studies have shown that out of all of the different methods to decrease fire damage, prescribed burns are the most affective. Many people would argue that they are not as affective because they cause so many health problems. Although that is a very important view and may seem valid, those health issues are not as extreme as one might think. People should look at the majority of the benefits form prescribed burns and they will see how affective and important they are.

By comparing the topography, soil moisture levels, relative humidity, and wind speed of the upland Savanna and Bottomland forest we will be able to compare and contrast between these two vegetation zones. The data collected in the investigation will be used to test the hypothesis that the bottomland forest has a higher degree of shrub layer cover than the savanna. The higher level of shrubs in the bottomland forest might be attributed to the space available for shrub layer species. In addition, the data collected will confirm that the bottomland forest has a higher tree density than the

In the play Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, the symbolism behind the burning woods appears twice within the play. The burning woods represents the things going wrong in Willy’s life when associated with the lack of success within his family. “You’ll retire me for life on seventy goddam dollars a week?… the woods are burning! I can’t drive a car”(Miller 41). On page forty-one, Willy compares his inability to drive a car and his unsuccessful career to the burning woods. As well as “the woods are burning, boys, you understand? There’s a big blaze going around. I was fired today”(107). In his second reference to the burning woods, Willy uses it to reveal that his life is going down hill yet again, when he tells his sons he was fired.

Anstey Hill Recreation Park proves an interesting area to study the effects of bushfire on native ecosystems as a path winding up the hill provides a fire break. This break is what allows the two differing burn areas to be studied. The 2012 fire was a prescribed burn as the area had previously been unburnt since Ash Wednesday in 1983. Prescribed burns are conducted to reduce the fire danger associated with the fuel that builds up over time in the

The biomass and density of trees surrounding each plot were also recorded. A static chamber method was used to measure the fluxes of the three GHG. The method was carried out using a closed cylindrical chamber equipped with a small fan, and gas concentrations were measured with an infrared, non-dispersive scope. There were other more detailed, accurate methods used as well to be more accurate with exact numbers for the concentrations of each gas. The concentrations of each gas were compared between each location and results are as follows: As the thickness of the active layer increased, all three greenhouse gas emissions increased. Carbon dioxide fluxes increased with time since the last fire, with the 1969 fire area having the highest CO2 emissions, and the 2012 fire area having the lowest CO2 emissions. Methane fluxes had a significant increase in the 1990 fire area, and a lower influx in all other fire areas. Nitrous oxide had a high influx in every fire area except for the 1990 area, where the fluxes were significantly lower. Addressed in the discussion, the authors write about how their results indicate that areas affected by fire will take approximately 50 years to fully recover to their pre-fire conditions. As well, areas with a recent fire had much lower soil moisture than areas with a long time since last

When both changes of climate and fire regimes were simultaneously accounted for, on average, the climate scenario RCP2.6 resulted in the highest values for NPV, size diversity and total carbon stock under all management intensities, and the highest species diversity under most intensities. In year 2100, in general, the 20-year cutting cycle led to higher total carbon stock and size diversity but lower NPV and species diversity. Low-intensity management caused the highest total carbon stock (10 years: 823 – 854 ton ha-1; 20 years: 864 – 888 ton ha-1) and size diversity (10 years: 1.93 – 2.11; 20 years: 1.95 – 2.10) but the lowest NPV (10 years: 9,318 – 9,955 $ ha-1; 20 years: 3,426 – 4,056 $ ha-1) and species diversity (10 years: 1.28 – 1.31; 20 years: 1.18 – 1.22). Lower total carbon stock (10 years: 778 – 814 ton ha-1; 20 years: 800 – 828 ton ha-1) were expected with medium intensity but satisfactory species diversity (10 years: 1.50 – 1.53; 20 years: 1.36 – 1.39), size diversity (10 years: 1.47 – 1.59; 20 years: 1.91 – 2.02), and NPV (10 years: 18,721 – 19,812 $ ha-1; 20 years: 7,749 – 9,596 $ ha-1). High intensity resulted in the lowest total carbon stock (10 years: 740 – 775 ton ha-1; 20 years: 768 – 794 ton ha-1) and size diversity (10 years: 0.89 – 1.02; 20 years: 1.27 – 1.40), but the highest NPV (10 years: 26,749 – 27,440 $ ha-1; 20 years: 13,302 – 13,757 $ ha-1) and species diversity (10 years: 1.58 – 1.61; 20 years: 1.53 – 1.56) (Tables 2-4).

In the U.S. city of Palatka, Florida is a paper mill that affects the environment of the nearby cities. Georgia Pacific has a huge impact on the soil quality due to their extensive process of deforestation, in order to produce tissue and other paper products. An annual report from the environmental management team of Georgia Pacific will show how Georgia Pacific (GP) manages the land. Due to the consistent deforestation, it could possibly strip the soil of its nutrients, which would be tested through the pH, phosphorous, potash, and nitrogen level of an affected area and the area of deforestation. In order for the pine trees to thrive, the trees that

Whenever a natural disaster occurs, scientists often points towards global warming to justify the cause or the intensity of the natural disasters, and they would be correct. Hurricanes for example, intensifies due to the heating of the oceans, both on the surface and the increasing depth of the ocean. This causes coastal areas, particularly cities, spending billions of dollars yearly to prevent something that’s caused by humans. Wildfires are another big natrual disaster that costs millions of dollars. Wildfire can start with a cigarette and turn into a billion dollar contastophy due to global warming, logically one can due the equation, if the earth’s temperature is getting hotter than that means wildfires will be triggered more easily and

The U.S. office of Military Government (1946) reported that after the Second World War, timber exports from Germany were particularly heavy, and forest area dramatically decreased consequently. But with change of national and regional policies the rate of deforestation started to decline (FAO, 2011). The effect of this policy change is also visible in the results of this study, so that deforestation in the second decade (2000-2010) was almost half (0.44) of the first decade (2000-1990), while a downward trend has accelerated in grasslands so that in the second decade, this area declined approximately 1.67 times more than the first

In contrast, since the McCraney Valley site experienced a large amount of tree removal in 2012 (Oakville, 2009) and no follow up strategies were undertaken, the bank risk of McCraney Valley is significantly higher than the other three sites (reaches the highest score at 34.74). All visited sections of McCraney (section 11-15) are classified as high risk (refer to Appendix 5: Risk Rating Scheme of 20 Study Sections); Specifically, removing ash trees leads to the extreme lack of canopy coverage, which is a crucial X variable, resulting in a high Y variable (bank risk). Moreover, all the study sections of Munn’s Creek are considered medium risk and high risk because the natural condition is poor in terms of canopy cover based on the rating scheme.(refer to Appendix 4, Bank Risk Assessment of Munn’s Creek). For example, from our observations, there are only a small amount of ash trees that exist along the stream within Munn’s Creek. As a result, if Munn’s Creek is planning to remove ash trees in 2019 (Oakville, 2009), very careful thought out management plans must be executed to ensure the bank risk does not increase too drastically.

The density of trees from 60% to 50% shows a significant change in the percentage burnt as well as ticks. The average percentage burnt for the density 60% was 66.9% whereas for the density 50% the percentage burnt was an average of 1.5%. This

Our lab investigated the morphological characteristics of leaves found in the sun and shade on various species of maple and oak trees around campus. Our null hypothesis was Acer and Quercus acclimate similarly with regards to SLW (specific leaf weight), size, and sinuosity. Our hypothesis was Quercus acclimation is greater than Acer SLW, size, and sinuosity. We tested these hypotheses by picking small sections of a branches from both maple and oak trees. A group was assigned either a maple or an oak tree, and needed a total of three different trees per group. Once three different trees were chosen, groups needed three shade leaves and three sun leaves of off each different tree. In total, each group should then end up with 18 leaves for testing. After collecting the leaves, we ran them through the LiCor 3100 leaf area meter to identify the area of each leaf. Major results found by the classes’ mutual data was each one of our p-values were greater than .05. This means that we failed to reject the null hypothesis. Thus, the lab results do not support our hypothesis that Quercus acclimation is greater than Acer SLW, size, and sinuosity.

Most all of us have heard of Smokey Bear and his message of preventing forest fires. Smokey Bear teaches children and adults to prevent forest fires by properly extinguishing campfires. This is a good message to learn, but it also leads people to believe that all forest fires are a bad thing. In many places fire is a naturally occurring phenomenon that is beneficial to the environment. Because of population growth and the Smokey Bear stop forest fires campaign, fire has been suppressed in much of the country. By suppressing naturally occurring wild fires, we are greatly increasing our risk of large out of control wild fires that cause billions of dollars’ worth of damage. These fires also risk the lives of the men and women who work hard to fight them. One way to deal with this is through prescribed fires. Everyday forest rangers like my husband utilize prescribed fires as an effective tool in forest management. Prescribed fires have a lot of the same benefits as naturally occurring wild fires, but they are done in a controlled environment. Three of the major benefits of prescribed fire are fuel reduction, insect and disease control, and the improvement of plant and animal health.

Normalized difference vegetation index maps extracted from near infrared and red-bands of the study periods indicated that different LU/LC has different NDVI values. As NDVI is related with the vegetation condition, the value varies from area to area based on vegetation intensity of the sites. Plantation and shrub land have the highest NDVI value than other classes (Fig. 4.6).