Fire Birds: Valuing Natural Wildfires and Burned Forests

This book offers something a little different for anyone interested in birds. Most of us are very frightened by fire. I still remember my father making me go into the crawl space attic of our house to see if there was smoke or fire after a small kitchen mishap! No way was I going up there! Jim and I declined buying a wonderful house in a canyon in California because of the potential for wildfires and limited exits out of the area. We all watch in jittery awe as blazes consume forests and homes. And, of course, we believe 

Courtesy Nevada Div. of Forestry

Smokey Bear when he tells us that only we can prevent forest fires. Wrong! Many fires are natural and Smokey's message needs to be updated.

Natural wildfires, those not set by pyromaniacs and firebugs and that are not burning down houses, are actually a beneficial part of the natural cycle. Sneed Collard clearly shows how these natural fires benefit the bird population. As he points out, the "eerie landscape of charred, blackened stumps and snags" is filled with wildlife. Fallen trees create nesting areas for more than 15 species of birds in the Western U.S. that thrive in burned forests. While these birds are also found elsewhere, they are abundant in burned forests.

 Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The book follows the work of  Richard Hutto, a biologist who became interested in the connection between forest fires and wildlife the same year that Yellowstone National Park burned. The book is filled with striking photographs of birds living, feeding, and nesting in burned out areas. One bird, the Black-backed Woodpecker,is the ultimate fire bird, is found almost nowhere other than in burned forests. Although it is not just about birds, other animals also thrive where the birds are doing well, many birds like the dark-eyed juncos, house wrens, northern flickers, western tanager, and others are prevalent in burned forests.

 Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons 

Another biologist, Dr. Vicki Saab, focuses her work on figuring out how to manage burns to support wildlife. The decisions made regarding public lands and fire management "are often driven by politics, money, and the public's negative attitudes toward wildfires." But there is beauty and life in the burned out ecosystems. So next time I'm in a burned out area, I'll be looking for birds that I've never seen elsewhere.