Seems a lot of trees in CA need fire to replace themselves. Another good thing in addition to hopefully wiping out the electrical grid and suppressing tourism.
The knobcone pine is fire-dependent; fire is necessary for its reproduction, and it promotes it with its low branches.
cloudphotographic.com 
Lodgepole Pine Trees Love Forest Fires
indianapublicmedia.org
Fire Climax Pines Need Fire
Some pine trees, including Monterey Pine and Pond Pine, have cones that stay tightly closed, making it impossible for the seeds to get out, until they are exposed to high temperatures such as are found in a forest fire. These are called “fire climax pines”. Seeds cannot germinate to form new trees until the parent trees have been destroyed in a forest fire, assuring that the new trees will not have to struggle in darkness among adult trees, but will only be among trees of the same age. When there is a fire, the number of seeds released is great enough to assure survival of enough new trees to reforest the area. Fire climax pines are able to maintain their presence against the incursion of other species of trees because fire destroys all of the adult trees, but only the pines are naturally replanted.
yecheadquarters.org
Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) is the most widespread tree species in North America, and it is found throughout much of the Mountain West (MW) across a broad range of bioclimatic regions. Aspen typically regenerates asexually and prolifically after fire, and due to its seral status in many western conifer forests, aspen is often considered dependent upon disturbance for persistence. In many landscapes, historical evidence for post-fire aspen establishment is clear, and following extended fire-free periods senescing or declining aspen overstories sometimes lack adequate regeneration and are succeeding to conifers.....sciencedirect.com
fs.fed.ussafnet.orgOak woodlands have burned for thousands of years. Native people burned the oak woodlands throughout California for many reasons. Often their fires were purposeful and directed to manage particular species. Certainly lightning fires in the coastal oak woodlands and those along the Sierra Nevada were common, and could burn for hundreds of miles if conditions were right. With the arrival of Europeans, fires were suppressed. After 200 years of fire suppression, and with warmer summer temperatures and drier years, fires have become frequent and large in California woodlands.
hastingsreserve.orgCalifornia black oak may function as a climax species in transitional environments between conifer forest and chaparral. Over much of the range, it is probably a persistent subclimax species maintained by resprouts after periodic fire. On better sites in the absence of disturbance, California black oak is eventually replaced by more shade-tolerant or competitive associates (tanoak, Douglas-fir, California white fir, pines). Under harsh conditions, conifer regeneration is often restricted to sheltered areas under black oak; the black oak serve as nurse trees.
Although fire kills trees of all ages, periodic fires probably have maintained California black oak populations in many areas. Populations appear to be declining after decades of fire suppression. Prescribed burns of moderate to low intensity are recommended to improve regeneration of California black oak from seed.
owic.oregonstate.edu
The role of fire in oak regeneration
academic.research.microsoft.com |
