VN #034: Forest Fires
Posted July 28, 2024

 

Forest Fires

Places for Renewal

A few days ago, as I stepped out of the house, powerful emotions swept through me. The warm light, the aroma of smoke, and the atmospheric sense of loss, brought back vivid memories of the 2017 forest fire that swept through our area. Being told to evacuate and the thought of losing our home evoked a feeling that is embedded in my psyche.

With forest fires in the news once again, I felt compelled to revisit one of my most powerful photographic experiences.

It was 2010. I was driving west toward Anahim Lake with my friend Mike Duffy; travelling through an area where a massive forest fire had raced through the day before. There was still smoke in the air and the trees were still smoldering; there was a starkness like I had never seen before. Sensing an extreme photographic opportunity, I stopped the truck, grabbed my camera bag, jumped the fence, and entered the barren land.

I walked slowly leaving deep footprints in the still warm ash. I felt humbled, insignificant, and vulnerable.

Within minutes I found six burned tree trunks in a formation that looked like someone had arranged them, as if for ceremonial purposes. After I found several more similar arrangements, I began to figure it out: three burning trees had fallen over each other. Where they touched, they burned through. What remained was art; a new form of beauty.

Mike examines where fire had travelled through tree roots underground creating long root cavities. The forest had become a living art gallery.

In complete contrast, juniper roots lay on the ground intact. The bush had vapourized; it had exploded and burned in seconds leaving the roots almost untouched.

Wherever I walked, I was in awe. The land had been transformed.

 

I also saw skeletons of deer and owls, and just when I felt there was no life remaining whatsoever, I heard a bird call and sounds similar to a woodpecker. I tracked it down and found a black-backed woodpecker.

As I later learned, Black-backed woodpeckers love pyrodiversity. They flock to burnt areas to feed on wood-boring beetles and other insect outbreaks that follow fires. They also build their nest cavities in newly burned areas to hide their young from predators. This species’ unique habitat associations means that they are sensitive to the removal of trees after fire, and forest managers use information on the woodpecker to guide their post-fire planning. They are highly connected to renewal.

When I returned a few weeks later, it had become a place of renewal

As Mike and I continued on our drive west across the Chilcotin Plateau, we talked about our experience. We realized that forests are born to burn, and that burned forests were home to an extraordinarily rich biological diversity.

Fire was a catalyst that had quickly transformed the area into a place for renewal.

 

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