Abstract

The Role of Fire in Managing Red Fir Forests. B.M. Kilgore. 1971. Trans. 36th North Amer. Wildlife and Nat. Res. Conf., pp. 405-416.

Prescribed fire in the red fir zone of Kings Canyon National Park reduced litter, duff, and humus by about 50%, reducing fire hazard, drastically reducing the number of red fir seedlings, stimulating lodgepole seedlings, killing some matures lodgepole pine, killing few mature red fir, and stimulating increases in some shrub species. Deer and bird populations appeared little affected. Soil erosion was negligible or absent as a result of the burning. It was concluded that fire suppression was of questionable value in red fir forest.