Fire Recovery Timeline

[ian_padron]

OK guys, here's a question for everyone. These wildfires are really something else to a Midwesterner like me. Being from Wisconsin, I've got no idea what to make of entire counties being on fire. My question is, after a fire, how much time does it take for the regrowth to become prime deer forage again. I imagine that 2 or 3 years after a fire, some pretty lush and nutritious green stuff must be present, as well as the deer that eat it. Thoughts?

My thoughts and prayers go out to the brave men and women out there protecting our homes and lands across the state!

[JimmyHoffa]

Probably have green grass after a few rains in Oct.  Short grass though.  Probably decent growth in the spring.  The exception would be if it got hot enough to sterilize the ground for about a year.

[vandeman17]

  It really depends on the intensity of the fire. I have seen some areas where it is green a few weeks later or at least the following spring and then I have seen some, such as above Ellensburg that are still a barren wasteland even a few years later.

[270Shooter]

The year after the mud lake fire on clemans the deer took a pounding in the burn.

[kentrek]

Elevation& intensity play a pretty good role...up high things can take quite a while to grow back...same if it got very very hot

[fishnfur]

Side note: 

I've read a couple of studies that stated that the deer return to a burned area as soon as it is safe.  Sometimes even before that.  In the Tillamook burn around 60 - 70 years ago, many deer actually sustained burns to their feet while attempting to re-enter the areas they had been living in, once the flames had been quenched.  Often times, they will actually starve while trying to live in those burned areas that they are familiar with rather than staying in the unburned areas that they fled to during the fire.  Seems crazy!

Sadly, it reminds me of humans rebuilding homes in flood planes just after loosing their third home to a flood.  That is crazy!

[ian_padron]

Thanks for the insight guys!!

[Skyvalhunter]

It all depends on the intensity of the fire. Some fires burn so hot that they sterilize the ground for a while. While most fires have hot spots here and there and regrowth can occur quickly with moisture. So there is no clear cut answer.