Day 188 Forest Recovery

Finding hope: As the wildfires cease, seeds and roots of wildflowers and grasses are the first to return, if the fire has not been too hot.

The forests of the west are burning. Will they return?

A good place to start considering the effects of the recent wildfires is to look at what has happened after the great Yellowstone Fire of 1988 which devastated the park in swaths of burned patches.

Watch this Landsat slideshow from NASA to see how slowly, but surely the forest recovered, although the scars are still visible from satellite and the forest has not returned to its full potential :

This article in Scientific American explains the recovery of that fire, and also warns that due to the changes in our climate, the much more frequent dryer, hotter climate may not allow the forests to recover. Are the current fires are burning more areas [not patches] and burning hotter so seeds cannot sprout? Let’s hope for solutions. Video from article:

The important words are that it is we humans who will have to adapt– and choose how to support the changes and our forests.