The impact of litter fires on the internal structure of wood from stemm of beech trees

Abstract

Forest fires represent an increasing threat to biodiversity and of course to trees, including the quality of wood inside the trees left in the forest after the fire. Due to the significant ecological and economic losses, the present research aimed to evaluate the internal quality of the wood inside the trunk of beech trees left after a litter fire. The fire occurred in 2019 and damaged many trees. Most of the affected trees were extracted from the stand, where only those that did not show external signs from the fire remained. From these were chosen the trees on which the field investigations were carried out. Both non-destructive and relative non-destructive evaluation methods were used to assess the internal quality of the wood, more precisely, analyses were carried out with the Arbotom sound tomograph and the IML Resi F-500 resistograph. After interpreting the results and comparing the tomograms with the resistograms, it was observed that, in most of the trees studied, the fire of 2019 had no negative effects, the wood inside the trunk showing no signs of internal decay or relatively low signs of decay. So, it can be appreciated that the trees existing at the moment in the burned plot can continue to exist in good conditions, not having damaged wood.