Barkley is leading another effort to produce a guide to help landowners recover from fire. The guide examines what people can do to protect the land from fire's worst effects while recognizing its benefits. Her advice for property owners, once the smoke clears, is to take a deep breath. The charred and moon-like scene that confronts visitors is often emotionally wrenching, Barkley said. Fires can bake the soil so severely that water cannot penetrate it.
Erosion often ranks as one of the most severe problems following fires.
Less severe fires can sterilize the soil, stretching the recovery time. Damage to soils might even be slight or nonexistent. A low-intensity fire can even benefit the soil and trees by releasing the nutrients that had been bound in grass, twigs, or fallen needles. Plants, however, almost always appear to be the losers after fire sweeps through an area. Intense fires that race through the crowns of trees leave behind a threadbare forest of blackened trunks.