FIRE EFFECTS
SPECIES: Vaccinium corymbosum | Highbush Blueberry 



IMMEDIATE FIRE EFFECT ON PLANT : 
NO-ENTRY


DISCUSSION AND QUALIFICATION OF FIRE EFFECT : 
NO-ENTRY


PLANT RESPONSE TO FIRE : 
Severe fires may remove trees and create openings favorable for highbush
blueberry.  Twenty-five years after a stand-destroying fire in a red
spruce (Picea rubens)-Fraser fir (Abies fraseri) forest at about 5,500
feet (1,676 m) elevation in North Carolina, highbush blueberry was the
dominant shrub, with over 26,300 stems per acre (65,000/ha).  This
constituted 15.8 percent of total shrub stems [19].  In a central New
York shrub-carr created by a severe wildfire in 1892 which consumed over
3 feet (1 m) of peat, highbush blueberry codominated the site with
mountain holly and black chokeberry in 1986.  Early photographs indicate
that shrubs dominated the site by the 1940's [11].

Burning favored highbush blueberry in the Great Dismal Swamp of
southeastern Virginia.  Highbush blueberry was present on logged (2
successive cuts 1970 and 1974) and unlogged areas swept by a late summer
wildfire in 1975 which burned 12 inches (30 cm) of peat, but was not
present on control areas.  Peak biomass values (g/m2/year) for highbush
blueberry 1 to 2 years after burning were as follows [14]:

cut-burned area         uncut-burned area           control area
    11.31                     66.52                       0


DISCUSSION AND QUALIFICATION OF PLANT RESPONSE : 
NO-ENTRY


FIRE MANAGEMENT CONSIDERATIONS : 
NO-ENTRY

Related categories for Species: Vaccinium corymbosum | Highbush Blueberry