Forests need centuries to heal from 'creepy' wildfires, ecologist says

A Parks Canada ecologist says the fires nearKejimkujikNational Parkwill hurt the productivity of the forest for hundreds of years to come.

Donna Crossland, who has a masters of science in forestry, worked with the Parks Canada fire crew to fight both the Seven Mile Lake and Maitland Bridge fires.

What she saw was "very sobering," as the fires burned "the very foundation of our forests, the soils," Crossland told CBC's Information Morning.

"Given that we already are situated in the area of poorest nutrients in Eastern North America, this is just an incredible setback in the forest ecology of the area," she said.

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Trees will be slow to return, she said.

"This will be a setback in forest productivity for the foreseeable future, probably centuries."

• Listen to Donna Crossland speak with CBC's Information Morning

Forest co-op looks to blueberries

Crossland alsosits on the board for the Medway Community Forest Co-operative, which manages 15,000 hectares of Crown land, almost all of which was formerly usedby the Bowater Mersey mill.

The group stands to lose more than anybody else, because so much of its land went up in flames, she said.

"Perhaps we should focus on growing blueberries for a while, because it may turn into heath land,"Crosslandsaid.

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'Creepy' fires

A really good rain is what's needed to extinguish these fires for good, she said.

"These fires really were creepy," she said. "You could put gallons of water on the line, and then you'd turn around and see it just start smouldering again because it was still burning deep underground.

"You just could not put this fire out. Mother Nature will have to put this fire out."

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Bulldoze trenches to stop underground blaze

The best her team could do was bulldoze trenches deep down into the soil to stop the fire from travelling underground.

"It just was burning so deeply, deeply in the ground," she said.

Crossland, who wrote her master's thesis on the natural role of fire in the Acadian forest, said humans have greatly accelerated the destruction of the forest by fire.

Historically, hundreds of years would have passed between wildfires, she said.

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