Forest Fires: Fire Management and the Power Law

István Karsai, Thomas Schmickl and George Kampis
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István Karsai: East Tennessee State University, Department of Biological Sciences
Thomas Schmickl: Karl-Franzens-Universitat, Department of Zoology
George Kampis: Eotvos University Budapest

Chapter Chapter 4 in Resilience and Stability of Ecological and Social Systems, 2020, pp 63-77 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Forest fires do not only destroy plants, animals, and structures, but also change the ecology of the habitat. While research of fire dynamics is a hot topic, there are many controversial issues in the field. Forest fires are commonly considered best examples for a scale-free, power-law distribution. We developed a model of a simple ecosystem that questions this and other well-established understandings. We show that in fact forest fires are not scale-free, power-law phenomena, but are generated by different processes. Our model also shows that trees and tree-dependent animals are affected by the fires differently. In prescribed fires, the forest will burn locally with smaller fires and this will not allow for a high accumulation of fuel in the forest. While trees tend to survive or re-grow, forest animals will easily go extinct. Without prescribed fires, more fuel will accumulate, which leads to an occasional single massive fire, where a large percentage of the forest will be destroyed, but the animal population is able to rebound and spread back from unburned patches. Our model provides a clear prediction that forest animals could be endangered by prescribed fire managements.

Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-54560-4_4

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-54560-4_4

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