Long-Term Effects of Fire on Forest Soils

Dear Colleagues,

There have been many studies and some excellent reviews of the effects of fire on soils. In most cases, these papers and reviews have focused on the immediate effects of fire on soil chemical, biological, and physical properties, and in general these effects are very pronounced. As is the case with many ecosystem perturbations, however, information on longer term effects is more sparse, mostly because few studies are funded for a sufficient length of time to investigate such changes.

Longer term effects of a wildfire could be a result of the immediate and direct effects of burning and the associated carbon and nitrogen losses, ash incorporation, or the indirect effects of charcoal and post-fire vegetation (especially nitrogen-fixing vegetation) along with the lingering effects of burning and ash that occurred immediately after the fire. Longer term effects of repeated prescribed fires could have all of the above as well as the cumulative effects of immediate soil responses. This special issue of Forests will address the longer-term effects of fire from both an observational and theoretical perspective.

Prof. Dr. Dale W. Johnson
Guest Editor