Canada

Controlled burns made a difference in a naturally regenerating old growth forest

The cycle of deforestation and artificial replanting is not natural any more and the forest everywhere is suffering from the damage without enough time for the forest to naturally protect itself. Add to that climate change is just making things hotter, drier and more prone to wanting to burn anyway.

If the forest is left alone, it naturally burns in areas that are weakest and more prone to burn anyway. It burns away old material and leaves behind ares for regrowth while leaving behind well grown, strong, large hundred year old trees that act as a protection from excessive burning.

When you have a forest full of small saplings that were planted 20 years ago sitting ontop of heaps of dead dry wood from forestry work decades ago ... it's literally a brush pile ready to burn with plenty of fuel.

Look at a Google map satellite view of northern Quebec ... it looks like someone ran a lawnmower at its lowest setting all over the landscape leaving behind thousands of acres of cut over forest and regrown forests .... it's all a brush pile ready to burn. Leave that brush pile to dry in the sun for a few weeks and what do you think is going to happen ... it's kindling ready to burn.

Just have a look at the satellite map around Oujé-Bougoumou Quebec where many of the fires are happening...... the landscape looks like it has a disease that's affected the surface everywhere .... it's all cut over forest that has been replanted and recut probably once or twice over the past hundred years