The Charcoal Forest – Lisa Connors
Ages ago in my Master’s in Environmental Studies at Bard College I learned about the ecology of forest fires. I understand how some flora and fauna are adapted to needing or benefitting from fires for some part of their life cycle. But I tend to forget this when the summer news is filled with stats on the current fires burning out west, in Canada, or in Europe. And indeed, wildfires are burning larger and hotter than they would without human-caused climate change. I am not an expert in fire ecology so I cannot say what our planet will look like in a hundred years or more if these large-scale fires keep happening. It doesn’t seem good. That is why I thought I would share a book that profiles flora and fauna that cannot survive without forest fires. To see the benefits of fire for some.
The Charcoal Forest: How Fires Helps Animals and Plants by Beth A. Peluso (Mountain Press Publishing Company, 2007) profiles 20 organisms that are adapted to fire. Examples include: fireweed, lodgepole pines, western larch, quaking aspen, deer mice, elk and mountain bluebird, as well as some insects. The species depicted are either fire dependent: without regular fires they would disappear; fire adapted: species include burns as one type of habitat they use; or any disturbance: species that do well in roadsides, blow-downs and burns.
Before profiling each organism on a two-page spread, Peluso has an introduction to explain the kinds of forest fires – low-severity versus high-severity, crown fires and mixed severity – that occur. The book looks at what happens in burned areas in the first twenty years after a fire. The book also has back matter with more information on each species profiled, resources and a glossary. The Charcoal Forest is a good book for answering young readers questions especially when fires are in the news often and they may have some anxieties about what happens to all the life that lives there. I hope you will check it out.
Announcement about Not Just a Frog Pond: If you are local, I will be doing a book signing at The Bookery in Lexington on Saturday August 22 from 11-1pm. I’d love to see you!
