Fire Ecology

Driving along highway 12 toward Lolo pass today, I passed right through the 2013 Lolo Creek Complex fire. A bunch of big trees along this stretch escaped salvage logging that decimated most of the beautifully burned forest there and, wow, the Lewis’s Woodpecker show was amazing! There must have been 20 birds flying all around and perching on the broken-top snags, indicating just how important it is to leave burned forests alone after a severe fire–those forests become heaven for species like the Lewis’s Woodpecker, not right after the fire, but a decade or so later.