Two solitudes: fire behavior and fire effects

This book attempts to couple four characteristics of fire behavior in the boreal forest to their effects on boreal tree populations. The presentation is unbalanced with the discussions of fire behavior more detailed than the discussions of fire effects on the plants. This is because our knowledge of fire behavior (intensity, rate of spread, duff consumed, frequency of occurrence, etc.) has developed by a quantitative understanding of the physical processes of fire while our understanding of fire effects on populations has been largely descriptive. As ecologists, we have shown a surprising lack of curiosity about how the fires actually produced their ecological effects (Van Wagner and Methven 1978). This is a result of a strong phytosociological tradition in plant ecology in which an adequate explanation was description of species composition patterns and correlation with general environmental factors. No attempts were made to specify the causal connections between fire behavior and individual plants in terms of appropriate physical variables. Nor were the fire effects on individuals tied to population recruitment and mortality processes.

This book should be of interest to those who already have some knowledge of populations and community ecology but wish an introduction to fire behavior and how it might be coupled to population processes. I have made no attempt to review all of the fire ecology literature of the boreal forest, nor do I discuss all aspects of fire in the boreal forest. Instead, I have concentrated on studies which have coupled the specific physical understanding of fire behavior to individual plants and populations.