Forest Sciences Commons^™

Wildland Fire In Ecosystems Effects Of Fire On Fauna, L. Jack Lyon, Mark H. Huff, Robert G. Hooper, Edmund S. Telfer, David Scott Schreiner, Jane Kapler Smith

Joint Fire Science Program Synthesis Reports

Fires affect animals mainly through effects on their habitat. Fires often cause short-term increases in wildlife foods that contribute to increases in populations of some animals. These increases are moderated by the animals’ ability to thrive in the altered, often simplified, structure of the postfire environment. The extent of fire effects on animal communities generally depends on the extent of change in habitat structure and species composition caused by fire. Stand-replacement fires usually cause greater changes in the faunal communities of forests than in those of grasslands. Within forests, standreplacement fires usually alter the animal community more dramatically than understory …