• Introduction
• Assessing Trees
• Assessing Soils
• Soil Surface Amendments
• Contour Felling
• Salvage Logging
• Pros and Cons to Salvage Logging
• Pros and Cons in Perspective
• What to do to help trees
• Sources and Credits
• Interactive Exercises

Tree and Forest Restoration - Assessing Soils

Wildfires usually travel quite rapidly over the surface of the soil. As the fire approaches, the intense radiated heat preceding the flames usually vaporizes a lot of the naturally occurring terpenes, resins and waxes that plants produce to protect their stems and needles. Although many of these vapors burn off, some condense on the cooler soil surface and form a water resistant layer. (These same substances are captured by wood processing plants and become major ingredients in the wood preservatives people apply to their decks.)

Hydrophobic Soils

Typically, the greater the intensity of a fire, the more gases condense on the soil surface and the more impermeable the soil surface will become to water. This results in what are called hydrophobic soils, which can significantly decrease the recovery of plant species on burned areas by excluding water recharge to the soil and promoting serious erosion.