Long gone are the days when researchers observed that Amazon jungles didn't burn. Uhl once sheltered part of the forest floor from rain for more than a month but couldn't get a blaze going. Now Uhl sees fire as a huge force for change in rain forests. Even for those species that survive, these grand fires might be among the largest biological selection events in modern history. In other temperate forests, however, small fires have the opposite effect and reduce the chance of future blazes, notes James K. Agee of the University of Washington in Seattle.
Little fires lap up dead leaves and branches, preventing fuel from building up.
Adaptations like thicker bark protect trees. Forest managers now set these so-called prescribed burns as preemptive housekeeping blazes. Ecology is really a science of place. From Science News , Vol. Copyright 1998 by Science Service.