The effects of forest fires on some ecosystems and succession process of burned site

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There is a little information about succession of post-Fire vegetation because of lack of study on some old burned areas following fire in Japan. Some burned areas remained without afforestation for a long time in Hokkaido Island and Tohoku District of Honshu Island.A large-scale forest fire started on May 18, 1911, and the original vegetation of mixed conifer-hardwood forest burned out approximately 36 Km^2 around Furano city in Hokkaido. Most of the burned area have been planted some coniferous trees (fir, larch, spruce etc.) and deciduous broad-leaved trees and shrubs grew in some burned area without afforestation. Deciduous broad-leaved trees of Betula maximowicziana, Quercus mongolica var. grosseserrata, Betula platyphylla var. japonica, Acer mono and so on dominated in the canopy tree layer in the forest and evergreen coniferous trees of Abies sachalinessis and Picea glehnii invaded in the substrata. Deciduous broad-leaved forest (hardwood forest) will change to mixed conifer-hardwood forest in the future.The forest fire burned out about 930 ha on April 27, 1983 in Kuji city, Iwate Prefecture. Burned canopy trees of Quercus serrata, Quercus mongolica var. grosseserrata, Castanea crenata, Styrax obassia, Acer rufinerve, Prunus verecunda and so on put out a large number of basal shoots on their scorched trunks and some of new shoots survived in twenty years after the forest fire. The post-fire vegetation of burned coppice forest is similar to unburned coppice forest investigated in 1984.