Snuffed out
Next try at prescribed burn could take place in the fall
A controlled burn this week to open up the forest in a portion of the Cape Breton Highlands National Park has come to an unsuccessful end.
Efforts to use fire to spur the development of the old Acadian forest deep in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park this week have come to an unsuccessful conclusion.
The controlled burn in Warren Lake began with a test fire in a hectare-sized unit on Tuesday and ended after a second effort on a dryer, more sun-exposed area on Wednesday when specialized crews under the guidance of Parks Canada decided the forest floor was still not dry enough.
“For us it is really that kind of learning from lessons in the past and realizing when is the right time to burn and when is not the right time to burn. It’s a hard decision — you have everybody here and they are ready to go and it is easy to carry forward and it’s hard to stop,” said Jed Cochrane, a fire ecologist.
“I think we were wise in the decision to not go forward if we were not going to get the results we needed. At the end of the game, that’s the story for this one.”
The prescribed fire was under the direction of Parks Canada, with assistance from the Department of Natural Resources, with a goal of opening up the forest to maintain and enhance the amount of red oak and white pine in the national park.
Its planning began with park ecologists noticing changes in the park ecosystems attributed to a lack of fire.
“We had really specific targets around fire intensity — how hot the fire was, how much forest fuels on the forest floor were being consumed — that were tied very closely to what we wanted or needed for conditions for oak and white pine regeneration.”
Without the correct fire intensity, he said objectives just couldn’t be achieved.
“After we lit the fire we discovered conditions weren’t quite right, so rather than continue and have fire just for the sake of fire, we stopped.”
A lack of results happens from time to time in the prescribed fire business, he said.
“We want to be very careful when we use prescribed fire from both ends of the spectrum. We want to make sure we have enough fire behaviour and that things are dry enough but we also want to make sure things aren’t too dry and that we end up losing it or having to escape the prescribed fire.”
By Thursday morning, Cochrane was packing for a brief return to his home in British Columbia and then planned to move on to Saskatchewan where his specialized skills will be used to help battle a wildfire.
He’d like another shot at shaping the vegetation in the highlands but said forest ecosystems are slow with respect to change, so this week’s setback means those trees they were trying to help should be fine until they get back to them.
A summer return for the burn was ruled out because conditions will most likely be too dry. It might be something to consider in the fall or maybe next year with some adjusted parameters.