Navigation: View Fire Ecology & Fire Management for related pages.
Sub Pages of this page:
— Social Media Comments
— — Forest NS on wildfires, and some comments
NS Gov Photo: A burnt wooded area in West Dalhousie, posted on FB Aug 27, 2025
Following the record spring fires in 2023 and in 2025 while the massive Long Lake fire is [was] ongoing in Aug and Sep., Big Forestry, represented in NS by Forest Nova Scotia, has been quick to comment that managed forests reduce the risk of fire and thence to argue that our Protected Areas require some forest management to reduce risk of fire.*
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*2025, see – CBC Sep 4, 2025, article on glyphosate spraying. Comments Forest NS executive director Todd Burgess : “there is a short-term risk [associated with spraying] but… a managed forest is a lower fire hazard over the course of decades.” Also view comments by Steve Freeman in discussion elicited by CBC article “– Increase in wildfires shows forestry practices need to change, experts say”, Aug 29, 2025.
*2023, see – “The Crucial Role of Forestry in Preventing Devastating Wildfires” Post on Forest Nova Scotia Blog Page, Nov 16, 2023, and on this website (NSFM0: Forest NS on wildfires, and some comments.
Is that a legitimate argument (“protected areas require some forest management to reduce fire risk”) or is it simply a way to open up protected areas to some logging? Forest NS folks rarely cites any scientific or technical literature to support their contentions or they cite or take their cues from FPAC (Forest Products Association of Canada||Forestry for the Future), which likewise tends to be short on the documentation side.
What routine forestry practices increase the likelihood and severity of wildfire, which ones reduce it? How can routine forest management be modified to reduce the likelihood and severity of wildfire?
On this page, a sampling of the very many popular and scientific documents related to such questions are compiled. There is some overlap with the page on Fire Prediction.
LINKS
Asterisked items are explanatory in nature without reference to scientific or other formal documentation.
– A review of natural disturbances to inform implementation of ecological forestry in Nova Scotia, Canada
AR Taylor et al., 2020 in Environmental Reviews “we estimated that the mean annual disturbance rate of moderate- to high-severity fire ranged between 0.17% and 0.4%·year−1 (return interval of 250–600 years), depending on ecosystem type.”
– Borealization of the New England – Acadian Forest: a review of the evidence
by Josh Noseworthy and Thomas M. Beckley. Environmental Reviews 2020, 28(3): 284-293. Authors’ Manuscript. “The New England – Acadian Forest (NEAF) is an ecoregion spanning 24 million hectares of the northeastern United States and eastern Canada. The region is characterized as a transitional forest naturally composed of both boreal and temperate species. The term “borealization” is sometimes used to describe various processes driving the NEAF toward a more boreal character at the expense of its temperate forest species and ecological communities. …We review over 100 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles and government reports related to this issue. We find ample evidence to suggest that, at the landscape scale, there has been widespread replacement of temperate tree species by boreal species since European settlement. Five primary drivers have facilitated borealization across the NEAF: logging and high-grading, natural reforestation of abandoned farmland, industrial clearcutting, anthropogenic fire, and boreal conifer plantations. Furthermore, the borealization of the NEAF has continued to occur in direct contrast to the predicted impacts of climate change.
– NSDNR’s nature-based forestry
A page on the blog/website Nova Forest Notes (nsforestnotes.ca). “A lot has happened since this page was first drafted in 2016. See Report from the Independent Review of Forest Practices in Nova Scotia released (Post, Aug 21, 2018), and the Report and Updates, The page is retained as-is stood in May of 2017 because it illustrates some of the context for the Independent Review…” It illustrates how DNR had to that point argued that “Frequent disturbance regimes [mainly fire] are dominant on 43% of the landbase”. Thus, by the logic of NSDR at the time, harvesting systems that simulate Frequent Disturbance Regimes i.e. clearcutting, would be appropriate on 43% of the landbase, while harvesting systems that simulate Infrequent and/or Gap Disturbance Regimes would be appropriate on 51% of the landbase. It’s partly on this basis that the goal of a 50% reduction in clearcutting was rationalized… Critics such as Donna Crossland (see below) and Noseworthy and Beckley cited above argued that the interpretation of natural disturbance regimes from the existing forest vegetation do not take into account the impacts of European settlement on fire regimes and hence on the vegetation, and thus that the estimate 43% of the landscape is subject for frequent disturbance regimes is way too high. DNR’s perspective was tacitly modified following the review of natural disturbances undertaken following the Lahey Report.
– Defining a forest reference condition for Kouchibouguac National Park and adjacent landscape in eastern New Brunswick using four reconstructive approach
Donna R. Crossland. MSC Forestry thesis UNB, 2006. 322 pages “…Contemporary forests have become less diverse than those 200 years ago and are dominated by short-lived, early-successional tree species instead of long-lived, late serail species…Fire from anthropogenic causes was very common everywhere in the post- European settlement forest, and it was the dominant force behind forest change.”
– Ecologist’s perspective on the Keji-area fires
Post on NS Forest Notes, Aug 17, 2016 “Donna Crossland, acting Ecologist for Parks Canada at Keji and on a team that has been fighting two of the fires, was interviewed on CBC today about the nature and effects of the fires. She said that in some cases, fires have burned right down to granite bedrock…The interviewer asked about the effects of the fires, citing a common refrain that such fires are good as they regenerate everything. Donna commented that is a common misconception about fires in our Acadian forest. It differs from the boreal forest which has a high frequency of wild fires…”
– Nova Scotia’s Fiery Past: Why early wildfires ignited by our ancestors should not justify modern clearcutting practices
Guest post by Donna Crossland on the Medway Community Forest Cooperative website, sep 4, 2015; link is to the web archive version. “Nova Scotia forests were heavily impacted during European settlement by frequent wildfires caused by a variety of human activities that far outweighed any direct impacts from early logging or shipbuilding activities. A retrospective glimpse of Nova Scotia during the 1700-1800s reveals important information otherwise lost from our modern understanding of what is ‘natural’ Acadian forest and the kinds of human impacts it has witnessed…”
– An expert explains the science of wildfires
Suzanne Rent in the Hfx Examiner., June 8, 2023. Interview with Ellen Whitman. Of note:
HE: What are the differences between the fires in Nova Scotia and say the fires happening in Ontario and Quebec right now?
EW: A major difference there is the forest type, for one thing. You do have a patchier landscape in Nova Scotia in terms of the availability of those continuous conifer fuels. Those fires burned in conifer-dominated areas and created some of the biggest fires Nova Scotia ever experienced. However, the fires that are happening in other parts of eastern Canada right now are in the boreal forests. It’s a much more conifer-dominated landscape. There’s lots of continuous fuel available.
– The NS wildfires are not ‘natural’ disasters: climate change, forest management, and human folly are all to blame
Joan Baxter in the Halifax Examiner, June 12, 2023 Baxter interviewed four forestry experts on the topic of forest fires. ““Our original forest was probably mostly mixed. It tended towards a softwood mix in some areas, and to hardwood mix in others,” Prest explains. Prior to European settlement, he says Wabanaki-Acadian forests would have good canopy coverage, and underneath the canopy it would be generally damp most of the time, without a lot of sunlight getting through to the forest floor. “And that in itself would be what would stop the fires from either starting or being widespread,” Prest says. “Certainly, the forest has changed.” But in Prest’s view, while changes to the forests are certainly not helping reduce forest fire risk, those changes are not the primary cause — climate change is…Simpson tells me that forest practices such as clearcutting and “anything that results in a preponderance of young and even-aged forests” can make forests more susceptible to forest fires and pests, both of which climate change exacerbate. He says such forest practices “tend to encourage more conifers, for a more boreal-type forest,” with an overabundance of fir and white spruce…Lancaster notes that both the Halifax and Shelburne fires were human caused, and that climate change is also a component. “So these are definitely human-driven disasters,” he says…Anthony Taylor is an associate professor of forest management at the University of New Brunswick who hails from the Musquodoboit Valley in Nova Scotia.. “Forest management practices during the 20th century and up to today have contributed to a younger Acadian forest and one with a higher abundance of spruce and fir,” Taylor says. “But it’s really tricky to say by how much as we have poor data on what the baseline pre-European settlement forest was like.” Taylor sees tree diversity as important in mitigating climate change. He is co-author of a recent paper published in Nature, which shows “conserving and promoting functionally diverse forests” promotes storage of carbon and nitrogen. That means the benefits are two-fold; a balanced mix of trees in a forest keeps more carbon in the ground and also increases soil fertility…“We know a certain amount of climate change is going to take place no matter what,” Taylor says. “In this region, the average annual temperature is expected to warm a couple of degrees in the next 30 years.” Given that bleak reality, Taylor has some other suggestions for reducing forest fire risks. “Besides stopping climate change, the next biggest thing is becoming much more aware of our role in starting fires,” Taylor says. “We have so much more access to the forest than we ever had, largely through all terrain vehicles and that sort of thing.””
– Increase in wildfires shows forestry practices need to change, experts say
Katherine Del Salto · CBC News Aug 29, 2025
Extracts: Subtitle: “Researcher, environmentalist say softwood monocultures, such as tree farms, increase the risk of fire” From the text.”More than 300 wildfires have been recorded in New Brunswick so far this year, up from 226 in 2024. Even more striking is the amount of land that has been burned. Last year, it was about 187 hectares. This year, it’s already more than 2,506 hectares. Anthony Taylor, a professor of forest ecology at the University of New Brunswick, said practices that promote the cultivation of only softwood trees, such as spruce and pine — known as monoculture — might be making our forests more vulnerable to fires…Read related comments on social media
– Monoculture plantations fuel fires amid heat waves
J. Barquin et al., 2022. In Science “…Evergreen trees have been shown to serve as efficient fuel for fires. Specific plant traits, such as essential oils or enhanced terpene content in Eucalyptus spp. and Pinus spp. leaves, respectively, increase the trees’ flammability (canopy ignition and the subsequent resprout or seed release help the species to outcompete others) The higher evapotranspiration rates of evergreens compared with native forests translate to lower soil humidity and dryer conditions. In addition, monoculture plantations often suffer from poor or nonexistent design and forest management, which translates into high tree densities, species homogeneity, and increased continuity of fuel loads .
– As logging intensifies forest fires, Wet’suwet’en fight to protect old growth
Erica Gies on mongabay.com Sep 23, 2024. “…Scientists are finding that industrial logging can contribute to the intensity and frequency of forest fires because it dries out the land…Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist for Wild Heritage, says thinning forests only reduces fire severity in narrow circumstances. “It’s critical to leave large, fire-resistant trees in place,” he says, and not to remove too much of the forest canopy, which dries out plants and soil and allows winds to blow fires longer distances. Even if done right, benefits last only about a decade, he says, and only thwart fire when the weather isn’t too hot or dry. Susan Prichard, a fire ecologist at the University of Washington, says thinning can be a helpful step before prescribed burns in certain ecosystems, such as interior Douglas fir and ponderosa pine forests that Indigenous peoples used to burn regularly. Outlawing the practice has led to overgrowth. Caas Tl’aat Kwah, on the other hand, contains interior cedar hemlock and Engelmann spruce subalpine fir ecosystems, with trees up to 350 years old. Prichard says thinning or prescribed burns in these types of forests would not reduce fire severity.DellaSala and other scientists say the focus on fuel loading and thinning fails to recognize the way in which industrial logging increases fire severity: It kills complex communities of life that stabilize the water cycle, leading to much drier landscapes. One paper that DellaSala co-authored looked at the severity of 1,500 fires in Western U.S. states over 30 years and found that protected forests, with higher levels of biomass [plants] and fuel loading, actually had lower fire severity than intensively managed areas of commercial logging. Another from 2018 found that “intensive plantation forestry characterized by young forests and spatially homogenized fuels, rather than pre-fire biomass, were significant drivers of wildfire severity.” Another from 2022 found that clear-cutting was a key factor leading to “frequent, high-severity fire.” Other studies suggest that old growth reduces fire severity by retaining moisture and helping to generate rain. In an intact forest, dense, layered canopies of multiple species slow rain when it falls, and roots provide pathways for water to move underground. From there, it filters into creeks, wetlands and rivers over weeks and months. As trees photosynthesize, they release water vapor into the air, forming clouds. They also release particles of microbes and fungi that help vapor coalesce into rain. Their rough surface slows wind, keeping moisture in the area. Old trees transpire more water, even through the dry season, because their roots tap groundwater from deep below. This phenomenon, called hydraulic lift, also distributes water to seedlings and weaker trees through the soil and mycorrhizal networks, keeping the whole forest moist, says University of British Columbia forest ecologist Suzanne Simard, author of Finding the Mother Tree. Damp soil, plant litter and woody debris are filled with living beings — fungi, microbes, insects and other animals — that hold onto water for a long time and “really help with fire resistance,” Simard says. For example, wild forests can hold more than 10 times the species of mycorrhizal fungi than young plantations. Trees feed the fungi via their own photosynthesis. After clearcutting, the few species that survive are not ones seen in old growth that are “big and fat and that really take up water and move it around the ecosystem,” Simard says… [more links given in the original article]
– The importance of natural forest stewardship in adaptation planning in the United States
Faison et al., 2023. in Conservation Science and Biology “…Natural forests (i.e., those protected and largely free from human management) tend to develop greater complexity, carbon storage, and tree diversity over time than forests that are actively managed; and natural forests often become less susceptible to future insect attacks and fire following these disturbances. Natural forest stewardship is therefore a critical and cost effective strategy in forest climate adaptation.”
– Extreme Weather Magnifies the Effects of Forest Structure on Wildfire, Driving Increased Severity in Industrial Forests
Jacob I. Levine et al., 2025 in Global Change Biology “Despite widespread concern over increases in wildfire severity, the mechanisms underlying this trend remain unclear, hampering our ability to mitigate the severity of future fires. There is substantial uncertainty regarding the relative roles of extreme weather conditions, which are exacerbated by climate change, and forest management, in particular differences between private industrial timber companies and public land agencies. To investigate the effects of extreme weather and forest management on fire severity, we used light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data to characterize pre-fire forest structure across five large wildfires which burned 460,000 ha in the northern Sierra Nevada, California, USA. We found that the odds of high severity fire occurrence in these fires were 1.45 times higher on private industrial land than in publicly owned forests, an effect equivalent to a three standard deviation decrease in fuel moisture…”
– Does increased forest protection correspond to higher fire severity in frequent-fire forests of the western United States?
Bradley et al., 2016 in Ecosphere 7(10) “We found no evidence to support the prevailing forest/fire management hypothesis that higher levels of forest protections are associated with more severe fires based on the RF and linear mixed-effects modeling approaches. On the contrary, using over three decades of fire severity data from relatively frequent-fire pine and mixed-conifer forests throughout the western United States, we found support for the opposite conclusion—burn severity tended to be higher in areas with lower levels of protection status (more intense management), after accounting for topographic and climatic conditions in all three model runs. Thus, we rejected the prevailing forest management view that areas with higher protection levels burn most severely during wildfires.”
– When Active Management of high conservation value forests may erode biodiversity and damage ecosystems
David Lindenmayer et al. 2025 in Biological Conservation. “The increase in extent and severity of disturbances such as wildfires and insect outbreaks in forests globally has led to calls for greater levels of “Active Management” (AM), including in High Conservation Value Forests (HCVF) such as old growth stands. AM includes such activities as thinning, selective logging of large trees (that are sometimes fire resistant), post-disturbance (salvage) logging, recurrent prescribed burning, and road building; singularly or in combinations. We urge caution when implementing these aspects of AM..We illustrate potential impacts of AM in HCVF in case studies from western North America and south-eastern Australia. AM has overlooked or downplayed collateral ecosystem damages in HCVF, including: (1) habitat needs of at-risk species, (2) thinning effects on ecosystem function, carbon emissions and biodiversity, (3) the role of stand-replacing or partial stand-replacing natural disturbances (e.g. wildfire, insect outbreaks) that produce complex early seral habitats, and (4) extensive road networks with associated impacts…”
– *Why Thinning Forests is Poor Wildfire Strategy
On www.westernwatersheds.org/. No Date“…So is there any place for forest thinning/fuel reductions? There is. But it should be limited to the areas immediately surrounding homes and communities. Since one can’t predict where a fire will start and burn, thinning forest willy-nilly is a waste of effort. Not only are most thinning projects done improperly, most are done for the wrong reasons and lose taxpayer money to boot.”No one wants houses and towns to burn up. Focusing thinning on the immediate area around structures is cost effective. It is also easier to maintain fuel reductions near homes because access is easy, and even though there are negatives with any logging operation, by focusing those impacts to the area immediately around homes and towns—places already impacted by human use—we minimize those negative ecological impacts.”Thinning trees/shrubs near homes, combined with a reduction in home flammability by installation of metal roofs, removal of flammable materials adjacent to homes, and other measures can virtually guarantee a home will survive even a severe high intensity forest fire.”Thinning forests for fuels reductions, unless strategically done, is a waste of taxpayer funds, and has significant ecological impacts. It is unwise forest policy.”
– *Officials insist there’s no evidence timber practices worsen wildfires
John Chilibeck for Telegraph Journal, Sep 9, 2025. “But Progressive Conservative MLA says it seems obvious that pure pine forests burn easier and faster than the natural Acadian forest mix” (Subscription required) Intro from Treefrog: “Michelle Conroy says she appreciates all the work the province’s firefighters have put into protecting Miramichi, as wildfires raged out of control. But the Progressive Conservative MLA for Miramichi East also wonders if their employer, the Department of Natural Resources, might have unintentionally made conditions in the forests worse by encouraging herbicide spraying so that New Brunswick’s powerful timber industry could have softwood plantations. …The idea that the ecosystem could had been thrown “out of balance,” was addressed by Deputy Minister Cade Libby. “Your comment is one we’ve heard quite a few times,” Libby said. “Yes, herbicides target broad-leafed plants. …But a working forest is a great way to mitigate forest fire risk.” The deputy minister said timber cutters use forestry roads that act as fire breaks and that they work on forests of various types and age classes that have less fuel load than virgin, old-growth forests do.”
*Despite what the logging industry says, cutting down trees isn’t stopping catastrophic wildfires
By Tony Schickand Jes Burns for /www.opb.org Oct. 31, 2020. Article provides some of the U.S. history of the controversy over whether active forest management reduces or increases fire risk, intensity etc. ““The belief people have is that somehow or another we can thin our way to low-intensity fire that will be easy to suppress, easy to contain, easy to control. Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Jack Cohen, a retired U.S. Forest Service scientist who pioneered research on how homes catch fire. The timber industry has sought to frame logging as the alternative to catastrophic wildfires through advertising, legislative lobbying and attempts to undermine research that has shown forests burn more severely under industrial management, according to documents obtained by OPB, The Oregonian/OregonLive and ProPublica…The idea of managing forests to prevent wildfires began gaining popularity in the 1990s, after logging on public lands plummeted following court battles that led to protections for threatened species like the northern spotted owl.”
– *Logging in disguise: How forest thinning is making wildfires worse
Chad T. Hanson in www.grist.org Aug 24, 2021. “The U.S. Forest Service clears trees from public lands in the name of fire prevention, but it doesn’t work. There are better strategies to protect communities, but don’t expect to hear about them from the logging industry. Chad Hanson is an ecologist with the John Muir Project and the author of Smokescreen: Debunking Wildfire Myths to Save Our Forests and Our Climate (University Press Kentucky, May 2021).”
– The effects of thinning and similar stand treatments on fire behavior in Western forests
Graham et al., 1999. Pacific Northwest Research Station, Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-463, 27 pages “… Depending on the forest type and its structure, thinning has both positive and negative impacts on crown fire potential…No single thinning approach can be applied to reduce the risk of wildfires in the multiple forest types of the West. The best general approach for managing wildfire damage seems to be managing tree density and species composition with well-designed silvicultural systems at a landscape scale that includes a mix of thinning, surface fuel treatments, and prescribed fire with proactive treatment in areas with high risk to wildfire.”
– Impacts of Forest Thinning on Wildland Fire Behavior
By T. Banerjee. 2020. Forests 2020, 11(9), 918; https://doi.org/10.3390/f11090918. “Key message: We have explored the impacts of forest thinning on wildland fire behavior using a process based model. Simulating different degrees of thinning, we found out that forest thinning should be conducted cautiously as there could be a wide range of outcomes depending upon the post-thinning states of fuel availability, fuel connectivity, fuel moisture and micrometeorological features such as wind speed.”
– Self-thinning forest understoreys reduce wildfire risk, even in a warming climate
Philip J Zylstra et al., 2022 in Environmental Research Letters
ABSTRACT As climatic changes continue to drive increases in the frequency and severity of forest fires, it is critical to understand all of the factors influencing the risk of forest fire. Using a spatial dataset of areas burnt over a 65 year period in a 528 343 ha study area, we examined three possible drivers of flammability dynamics. These were: that forests became more flammable as fine biomass (fuel) returned following disturbance (H1), that disturbance increased flammability by initiating dense understorey growth that later self-thinned (H2), and that climatic effects were more important than either of these internal dynamics (H3). We found that forests were unlikely to burn for a short ‘young’ period (5–7 years) following fire, very likely to burn as the regrowing understorey became taller and denser (regrowth period), then after a total post-disturbance period of 43–56 years (young + regrowth periods), fire became unlikely and continued to decrease in likelihood (mature period). This trend did not change as the climate warmed, although increases in synoptic variability (mean changes in synoptic systems per season) had a pronounced effect on wildfire likelihood overall. Young forest and regrowth forest became increasingly likely to burn in years of greater synoptic variability and the time taken for forests to mature increased, but in years with the most severe synoptic variability, mature forests were the least likely to burn. Our findings offer an explanation for fire behaviour in numerous long-term studies in diverse forest types globally and indicate that, even in the face of a warming climate, ‘ecologically-cooperative’ approaches may be employed that reinforce rather than disrupt natural ecological controls on forest fire. These range from traditional indigenous fire knowledge, to modern targeting of suppression resources to capitalise on the benefits of self-thinning, and minimise the extent of dense regrowth in the landscape.
– *Do Clearcuts Replicate Natural Disturbances like Fire? …or do they actually end up creating more fires? (Video)
Ross Reid on nerdyfornature, Sep 4, 2025 “It’s often said that the management practices used to cut and replant trees replicates natural disturbances such as fires, and cosmetically it may appear this way…but ironically, industrial-scale logging is actually one of the largest contributing factors to the wildfires we see each year.”
– *Despite What the Logging Industry Says, Cutting Down Trees Isn’t Stopping Catastrophic Wildfires
Tony Schick in www.propublica.org/ Oct 31, 2020 “For decades, Oregon’s timber industry has promoted the idea that private, logged lands are less prone to wildfires. The problem? Science doesn’t support that.”
– *Rescinding the Roadless Rule to fight fires doesn’t make any sense! (Video)
Ross Reid on nerdyfornature, Aug 29, 2025. “Back in 2001, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule was enacted to protect over 58 million acres of national forest in the States from industrial development and extraction, from notable areas like the Tongass National Forest in Alaska down to countless forests and ecosystems in the lower 48, many of which are surely very close to where you live. Yet today, the Trump administration has begun to rescind the Roadless Rule under the guise that having roads in these remote areas will help us fight extreme wildfires better, and I’m sorry, that is just so far from the truth…This reasoning uses misinformation and fear tactics to ignore the science … let me explain…”
– Fire behaviour experiments in boreal spruce and aspen (Video)
fireresearchcanada Posted Nov 20, 2018. “On a remote section of a large ‘modified response’ wildfire in 2007 we conducted a couple of fire behaviour experiments. Ignition in the boreal shrubs carried into the spruce, to the mixedwood stand and then stopped abruptly at the edge of the leafed-out aspen stand.”
– *Business-as-usual forestry and fire management is a burning dead end
By Julian Axmann, BC Spaces for Nature in The Vancouver SunOctober 26, 2023 “Before wildfires got this extreme, it arguably made economic sense — from a timber production standpoint — to transform the landscape into fully stocked conifer tree farms. However, planting continuous conifer forests to address climate change is like trying to put a fire out by pouring nitroglycerin on it.Broadleaved trees provide natural fire breaks that are much needed around communities and across the commercial forest. Since deciduous and mixed forests are of little interest to the forest industry — B.C. still aerial sprays broadleaves with herbicides — serious government incentives are needed for commercial forest practices to become climate-smart. So here we are. B.C. is at a crossroads…”
– Intact Forests in the United States: Proforestation Mitigates Climate Change and Serves the Greatest Good
William R. Moomaw et al., 2019, in Front. For. Glob. Change
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