Fire damaged trees

[Aicchalmers]

So there's a community woodland that I've been helping out with that recently suffered an arson attack on a cabin.

It was left vacant for a few weeks as the man who was staying in it was undergoing cancer treatment, sadly he died a week later.

Just been up to clear up what was left of the cabin and make it a nice space again.

Surrounding it were some mature beech and oak trees that have been severely damaged by the fire, there's three trees that had actually been alight when the fire was spotted, and seem to be entirely dead up one half of the stem.

Another had more generalised damage and while it's still got living parts to it has been scorched all over.

Just trying to figure out what's the best thing to do with the trees.

The woodland is being managed for biodiversity so it would be good to leave some dead standing wood about. There is public access but there's no footpaths near the area currently, but we would like to take away anything particularly dangerous.

Is there any point in pruning fire damaged wood where the trees look likely to recover or will it only encourage disease to set in?

Options I can see are:

1) Do nothing

2) ~20% reduction of fire damaged wood to take away dangerous wood and a bit of 'veteranisation' to encourage biodiversity

3) Entire removal of fire damaged wood

4) Entire removal of trees with the hope of coppicing

Anything else that can be done to encourage the trees to recover?

As far as clearing up the forest floor we've just tried to remove as much ash and plastic as possible, would it be worth spreading some chip about to allow the mycological fabric to regenerate or should it just be left to regenerate as with a wildfire?

 

[sandspider]

Can't really help directly, but I once lit a garden bonfire rather too close to a young beech tree. Half the tree died, but I just left it alone, and eventually it recovered fairly well. Took a few years for it to stop looking lopsided though...

 

What kind of nob end sets fires for the sake of it?

 

Good luck.

[Dan Curtis]

I had a job like this last year. Someone had set fire to a paintball site in some woods and a few Oaks and Beeches caught fire. The beeches were mostly killed, or became weakend to the point that they were open to multiple pathogens. The Oaks though severely scorched weren't too structurally damaged, and didn't seem to unstable as a result.

 

Based on my experience, I'd think hard about bringing the Beeches down to a size that they aren't going to fall onto any targets, of the 10 or so we felled, at least 9 weren't even stable enough to climb. I'd be going for short monoliths personally. The Oaks were felled within falling distance of the cabins. The further away ones were reduced, fractured and/or monolithed.

 

As far as I know, fire isn't an evolved part of British habitat, but you might create some interesting opportunities if some burned material can be kept.

[Dan Curtis]

I don't have many pictures to hand but I'll try to find some of the Oaks when I get to my pc. The fire was 6-8 months before we worked there.

[MATTMOSS]

1, do nothing. if there is no footpaths underneath.

 

imo it would be premature to do anything until the damage manifests itself and even then its a natural area of low use presenting a low risk.

[MATTMOSS]

reading the post again and looking at the pictures it is clear that the damage is obvious, but i still wouldnt do anything.

[JonnyVine]

Fell em

[farmer rod]

I was involved in putting out a fire inside a hollow Poplar. When we got to the tree flames were shooting out at about 20 feet. The tree survived for several years, and possibly is still there.

 

I have often wondered if, after a fire, a hawthorn hedge or anything else for that matter, was cut down as low as possible, would it coppice? From experience it doesnt grow back if you just leave it.

[Aicchalmers]

I guess we'll just have to keep an eye on things for now, I'm still going towards a minor reduction of the particularly damaged wood to tidy things up a bit, but am weary of leaving loads of stubs and making it too obvious .. any useful techniques for creating hollows and splinters short of square bore cuts and explosives?