A bear moves into the area regenerated from the prescribed burn. (Submitted photo/Prince Albert National Park)

By Ian Gustafson

Regeneration

Area burned by Rabbit Creek fire of 2018 has regenerated a ‘unique environment’

Oct 7, 2020 | 5:00 PM

Following a wildfire in the Prince Albert National Park (PANP) in 2018, officials are reminding the public how important fire is as a natural part of creating new ecosystems in the park.

The objective of the prescribed burn – which eventually got out of control when the winds got up – was to create fire disturbance to allow for the area to regenerate and grow to create a new habitat.

The fire was purposely started in the southwest corner of the park in the Rabbit Creek area in May of 2018.

Many different types of animals made their way into the new habitat. (Submitted photo/ Prince Albert National Park)

Dustin Guedo, vegetation ecologist for Prince Albert National Park, said they have been doing multiple prescribed fires for two decades and have been monitoring how those fires have been affecting the regrowth of vegetation, grasslands and forest as well as movements of wildlife.

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“After the 2018 Rabbit Creek fire we are really interested to see with a fire on a much larger scale how that was affecting the regeneration,” Guedo said.

A month after the fire, Guedo said they put up wildlife cameras to monitor the activity.

“We were interested to see with an intense fire that burned through this area, was there going to be much wildlife movement? We immediately captured wildlife moving throughout the area,” he explained.

Moose among many other species were discovered with wildlife cameras in the area. (Submitted photo/Prince Albert National Park)

What they found were photos capturing white-tailed deer, elk, beavers, wolves, black bears, moose, raccoons, sandhill cranes and other animals using the new environment.

“We try to use fire for forest disturbance because that’s how the boreal forest has evolved,” he said. “It’s a fire disturbance-based ecosystem where when the fire moves through it opens up the canopy, it removes a lot of overgrowth trees and it really allows for a flush of new growth of plants.”

There are other ways this can be accomplished such as cutting of the forests, but it is not as affective because it does not create the disturbance needed to spur the regeneration.

Different species of birds also made their way into the habitat. (Submitted photo/Prince Albert National Park)

He added they are pleased with how the fire in 2018 has created a unique environment.

“Depending on how intense the fire was, like how severe the flame was when it went through, it changes how that forest responds and how it grows back,” he said. “We have a really good mosaic of lightly burned to heavily burned areas and it’s created a really unique habitat. We’ve seen big influxes of birds like woodpeckers and lots of songbirds that like more of an open forest.”

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Ian.gustafson@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @iangustafson12