Fire Effects on Plants
An understanding of factors controlling the initial response of vegetation to fire is essential to its management. Fire effects on plants can vary significantly among fires and on different areas of the same fire. Fire behavior, fire duration, the pattern of fuel consumption, and the amount of subsurface heating all influence injury and mortality of plants, and their subsequent recovery. Postfire responses also depend upon the characteristics of the plant species on the site, their susceptibility to fire, and the means by which they recover after fire (Miller 2000).
The following section, excerpted from Wildland Fire in Ecosystems: Effects of Fire on Flora (Brown and Smith 2000), summarizes key mechanisms that explain fire effects on vascular plants: plant survival, resprouting, and seedling establishment in the initial stages of postfire recovery.
Information on the effects of fire on over 300 plant species found in the southeastern U.S. is available through the Fire Effects Information System (FEIS) of the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station. Additional information on hundreds of plant species is also provided in the Fire Ecology section of this encyclopedia, presented in the context of a particular community type (for example, information on sand pine is included in the Fire Ecology and Management of Florida Scrub). These species, and links to additional sources of information, are organized in the following tables:
- Fire Effects on Tree Species
- Fire Effects on Shrub Species
- Fire Effects on Grass Species
- Fire Effects on Forb Species
- Fire Effects on Vine Species
- Fire Effects on Cacti, Ferns, Lichens, and Bryophyte Species
- Fire Effects and Invasive or Exotic Plant Species
Encyclopedia ID: p619
