Fires in Mountain Pine Ridge char thousands of acres
In the year 2000, in infestation of the Southern Bark Beetle devastated the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve, killing million of trees and turning the once verdant area from green to brown. But in the years since then a combination of replanting and natural regeneration started to lay the groundwork for a renewed healthy forest … at least until a few weeks ago. A series of fires beginning in late April has set back much of the Pine Ridge for decades. And while recent rains have doused the fires, the outlook for the future is grim. Amin Bedran, who has been logging sustainably in the area for the last twenty-three years, explains.
Amin Bedran, Manager, Pine Lumber Co.
“The reserve is about a hundred thousand acres and about seventy thousand acres was hurt by the bug and another thirty thousand was contained and that’s our licence, so we are looking at about half of the area that was infected by the bug is burnt.”
“Unfortunately, I was a hot fire and it was hard to contain. They did some containment on some areas and I must say today we don’t have anything burning.”
Stewart Krohn
“So pretty much the Pine Ridge is out of danger now?”
Amin Bedran
“Yes, Stewart. I mean we are getting our storms in now and we are going to get some electrical storms and I am sure they are going to keep their eye out, but I think that all in all, the danger has gone, most of the fires have been contained.”
“You have good fires and you have bad fires. The fires that are killing out our natural regeneration are the scary ones because there are no more seed trees to regenerate these areas. Now you have good fires that are in areas that have seed trees and you are going to get regeneration.”
Stewart Krohn
“What are the implications of what you are talking about, that the regenerated trees are now being destroyed, what is that going to mean for the future of the area?”
Amin Bedran
“In the areas that the bark beetle hit very hard and we had beautiful regeneration and those little trees are being burnt, that is the area of interest that concerns me and I guess everybody else in the Forestry Department, that the areas that were regenerated or burnt, those are four and five years old trees and maybe you don’t see too many seed trees around to regenerate it back.”
Stewart Krohn
“What that means then is what we are talking about is maybe twenty years from now we are not going to have the kind of yield from logging that we would like to have had, noh?”
Amin Bedran
“That it correct. If it doesn’t regenerate naturally also, you kinda have to go in and replant.”
Some of the fires were started by lightning, but others were caused by flares dropped by the British Army conducting training in the area. While the soldiers helped fight the fires, they were not able to fully contain them.
