What are the effects of wildfires?

Answer 1

The effects of wildfires are: People lose there homes, animals are killed and also lose there vegetation, affects the air quality, the wind and heat. The good that wildfires do is they burn old dead trees, leaves, grass, anything that mother nature has not yet destroyed herself. Most fires leave a lot of animals homeless to say, which causes them to come into the city's nearest the fire and create a lot of havoc in the city around people.

Answer 2

The answer to the question, of course, depends on the habitat involved. Grasslands seem to recover extremely quickly; new growth appears within days of burning. Low-lying fires in a ponderosa pine forest have little to no effect on the trees, but do burn up anything low-lying on the ground. Old growth forest fires are different, and they are discussed below.

After the main fire passes through, the area may smolder and burn slowly for weeks or months if left to its natural course - often not until it is buried under a winter snow does the fire completely go out. Burned trees will stay standing for decades; they do not disappear completely in the fire as only the exterior of the tree burns. Some of the trees will fall down in the wind especially within the first year. Plants quickly re-sprout from the ground within a few days of a fire, other plants will get established by the next spring. The burned trees attract wood-boring insects, which, in turn, attract their predators: birds. Bluebirds and black-backed woodpeckers are examples of birds that seek out burned areas.

By the end of the next growing season, many plants will have re-established themselves. Lodgepole pine trees are one of the first trees to regrow after a fire; they have special cones (serrotonous) that are fused shut and only open when they are baked in a fire, and therefore the seeds are spread in a sunny place with little other competition from trees. Within a decade or two, the lodgepole pines will get larger and mature.

It may be perhaps 100 years before the forest looks similar to the way it did before the initial fire. In the interim, the forest will go through various successional stages, from each of which different animals benefit.

Answer 3

Wildfires can result in loss of habitat for wildlife, destruction of forests, air pollution from smoke, and can pose health risks to humans due to poor air quality. They can also lead to soil erosion and loss of biodiversity in affected areas.

Answer 4

Induces secondary growth from opportunistic species who have invaded that area or have had seed buried in the area waiting for the primary growth to me such a fate as wild fires.