Burnt trees, new life

Back in Hammonds Plains, Willett scopes up two children who ran into difficulty navigating the muddy trail, carrying them in either arm with ease as his boot squishes into a deep hole.

As he looks around the landscape, he explains that clearing some of these burnt trees actually removes fuel for any future fires that may come through.

“If you can imagine that you had a garden that was growing and you didn’t weed your garden and all the weeds were coming up and it was very thick, if a fire went through that, there’s a lot more fuel there and the fire would be a lot more intense,” he says.

It’s a claim disputed by Donna Crossland, who has dedicated her life to forest ecology. She works with the Healthy Forest Coalition, a group that protests clearcutting of Nova Scotia’s forests.

Crossland says she understands the appearance of the burnt trees can be retraumatizing for some, but she would encourage anyone with trees still remaining to leave them be.

“The forest recovers on its own. It’s almost like telling a burn victim they need a vigorous massage. No, you need a period of healing and care,” says Crossland.

She says forests renew at an incredible pace following a wildfire — the charred stumps providing perches for birds and habitat for other wildlife.

Crossland says once an area is burned, it’s unlikely to reburn. That’s because the fine fuels such as twigs, needles and leaves have already been burned up.

She compared it to starting a fire in your woodstove — you need kindling and paper to get it started, you can’t simply drop a log inside and expect it to burn.