Wildfires, Restoration and Resilience

After a pandemic, such as Covid, similar to after a forest fire, there may be damage or injury, but also the potential for regrowth.

Despite the damage, whether economic, social or personal - like the forest ecosystem, we can rebound with restoration and regrowth. In nature, wildfire is a sometime necessity and important part of the landscape but it is a fact that some such wildfires have a harshly negative impact upon communities, water resources, wildlife habitat and recreation facilities - and post-fire restoration can be crucial in spurring recovery and preventing further damage.

However, damage and harm from some fires doesn’t always stop once the flames are suppressed and the smoke clears, and in some instances can be more devastating than the actual fire itself and such adverse impacts such as loss of vegetation, soil erosion, damage to critical infrastructures such as roads, bridges and water reservoirs can cause floods, damage water supplies and destroy wildlife habitat for years after the actual fire has been extinguished.

The Restorative Power of Fire

Furthermore, invasive and aggressive species of vegetation can overtake burned ground and threaten wildlife habitat before native vegetation has a chance to reestablish itself.

Both immediate and continued efforts including reseeding and replanting with native species and long-term controls of non-native species will ensure native species once again thrive.

However, in the aftermath of a destructive major wildfire, it often difficult to appreciate the restorative power of the fire itself. This is particularly so when nothing remains to hold the land contours in place once the rain eventually arrives, resulting in possible mudslides and flash flooding.

Breathing life back over a blackened landscape

But the restorative rain will also breathe life back into the remaining landscape, facilitating new vegetation to sprout and grow in the blackened areas of charred, dry land. Seeds that are stored within the forest floor begin to germinate and sprout new, green growth as do the apparently dead branches on the buds of the charred trees. We should never underestimate the restorative powers of nature even as we look out over a blackened landscape, once densely population with coniferous and deciduous trees but where now blackened stumps stick up like deformed fingers from the apparently dead earth.

Concerns Over Wildlife

We are often worried that as a consequence of extensive wildfires that all life will be extinguished by the heat and flame. However, according to National Geographic, there’s really little cause for concern. “Once the flames begin, animals don’t just sit there and wait to be overcome. Birds will fly away. Mammals will run. Amphibians and other small creatures will burrow into the ground, hide out in logs, or take cover under rocks. And other animals, including large ones like elk, will take refuge in streams and lakes.”

In point of fact, some species actually rely upon wildfire for their propagation and the natural pattern of recovery after a wildfire is termed “ecological succession.” This is the process whereby the land, vegetation and wildlife move through various ecological stages in order to return to a state of relative stability.

Pressing the Reset Button

It approximates to hitting the “reset” button on the life cycle of a now denuded forest or wood. And amongst the first species to return to the scorched areas are wood-boring insects who will come from miles around to feast upon the dead and injured trees. And these insects play an essential role in the overall recovery process by attracting species of predator after a fire, including armadillos and birds will return to the burned area in search of food. Furthermore, the dead or injured trees will become home for the nests of dozens of species of birds and, eventually, also small mammals such as squirrels and mice, will join them. In time, the fallen trees will make ideal hollowed-out homes for slightly larger animals, such as foxes and then, once the tender new vegetation has appeared in the Spring, it will quickly attract larger wildlife, in particularly, deer.

Time Does Heal

Time eventually heals although recovery may require some help particularly in the case of very large wildfires covering extensive areas - but, in time, forests will heal themselves.

Having said that, wildfires can be catalysts for ecosystem change but given the projected climate change, it is predicted there will be shifts in the ecosystem following severe wildfires, as are present currently in Europe and around the world such as in Yosemite National Park. And because of climate change, there will be sites that will not regenerate with trees and former vegetation post-fire because of the changed climate. This change is important to appreciate both for society and nature because of the availability of timber supply, natural wildlife habitat, watershed protection and carbon storage. And we will also have to accept the fact that some existing forests will be replaced by shrublands, woodlands, and grasslands as we are forced adapt to a future with more fire as climate change accelerates.

Metaphors for Human Resilience

Overall, wildfires - their impact and the restoration and regrowth, are metaphors for human resilience to change whereby we have the ability - once the flames have died and the ground cooled, to push up new green roots among the dead, blackened wood; shoots that will eventually grow taller and stronger each day, with the restorative heat of the sun and the gently drink of the rain as it falls upon our leaves and moistens our roots us to give us new life: to replace the old with the new so that we rebound with restoration and regrowth, and where the black harshness of the former forest is replaced with the green gentleness of the new-born children of nature.

Carole Spiers is an international Motivational Speaker and C-suite Executive Consultant. She?will deliver a charismatic, high-impact keynote presentation on how to reduce stress, build resilience and improve your mental health at your next conference.?

Contact us:[email protected]?or call + 44 (0) 20 8954 1593. www.carolespiersgroup.co.uk

Book Carole as a Motivational Speaker now!??She?will deliver a charismatic, high-impact keynote presentation on stress, resilience or change at your next conference.?

Why Not Join Thousands of Other People?

Get proven stress tips delivered straight to your inbox and beat stress today!

Subscribe to our Stress Tips?here.

#publicspeaking; #speakinginpublic; #motivationalspeaker