Some wildfires can actually help birds thrive for decades

Fire often feels like a symbol of destruction – sweeping through forests, consuming homes, and filling the air with smoke. But not all fires bring ruin. Some burn softly, clearing the way for new growth and creating vibrant habitats where birds can thrive for decades.

In the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, a group of scientists found that many birds actually benefit from certain kinds of fires. Not just right after the smoke clears, but for decades.

The findings could help forest managers make better decisions about how to deal with fire in a warming, drier world.

What fires leave behind

The researchers studied 42 types of birds over a 20-year period in Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks. They matched up bird data with 35 years of detailed fire history to see how the birds were doing in areas that had burned compared to areas that hadn’t.

The result? Twenty-eight of the 42 bird species were more common in places that had experienced wildfire.

For eleven of those species, the positive effects of fire lasted at least 35 years. Only one species responded negatively to fire, and just four showed mixed responses.

Even some familiar birds, like the Dark-eyed Junco and Mountain Chickadee, showed clear benefits from fire – not just the so-called “post-fire specialists” that are known to move into burned areas.

How did we get here?

Historically, fires were a regular part of life in the Sierra Nevada. They happened often and were usually low or moderate in severity.

Indigenous communities even used fire as a tool to shape the landscape – keeping underbrush low, improving hunting areas, and helping certain plants grow.

But after the 1870s, settlers put a stop to those cultural burns. Then, for more than a century, natural fires were aggressively suppressed. That caused a build-up of dry wood, brush, and debris – the perfect fuel for bigger, hotter, more destructive fires.

Factor in climate change and long droughts, and it’s no surprise that we now see massive wildfires, sometimes called “megafires,” more often.

To push back, land managers are turning to controlled burns and other techniques to reduce fuel loads and restore the natural cycle of fire.

Fire can be a win for wildlife

The team behind this study came from The Institute for Bird Populations, the National Park Service, and UCLA. Their work reveals just how long the effects of low to moderate fires can last for birds.

“Given the effects of fire on the nature and structure of bird habitats, and the long post-fire process of vegetative succession, maybe it’s not too surprising that birds are responding to fires for so long,” said Dr. Chris Ray, the study’s lead author.

“But even low-severity burns had lasting effects on some species: for example, Western Tanager and Hermit Warbler were much more abundant at points that had experienced a low-severity burn 35 years ago than at points that never burned in the previous 35 years.”

The findings are not universal

Dr. Ray pointed out that nearly all of the study’s burned sampling sites (97.5%) had only low or moderate fire severity.

“Our results don’t necessarily apply to the very large and high-severity fires that have been occurring more often in these landscapes in recent years,” she said.

Dr. Ray also added a note of caution about how far the findings go. The birds studied were the more common species in the parks.

“These results don’t necessarily apply to some of the species that are rare in these landscapes, because we couldn’t apply our data-hungry statistical models to species that we didn’t observe very often.”

Helping forests by working with fire

Forests benefit when fire isn’t treated as the enemy – as long as it stays within a certain range of severity.

When fire returns to the landscape in patches, over time, and at different intensities – a pattern called “pyrodiversity” – it can create a mix of habitats that support more wildlife.

“Land managers might be heartened to hear that many birds might benefit even from burns that aren’t all low-severity,” said Dr. Ray.

Controlled burns, fuel thinning, and allowing some natural fires to burn under the right conditions might all help return the Sierra Nevada to a more balanced state – one where birds and forests have room to breathe, grow, and recover.

This study doesn’t just show that fire can be useful. It shows that when used wisely, it can have benefits that last for generations of birds to come.

The full study was published in the journal Fire Ecology.

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