Abstract
The Chilean summer of 2017 was the worst wildfire season by far. Hundreds of wildfires burned a total of more than half a million hectares of forested land (native forests and forest plantations). A significant portion of the burned area was occupied by Hualo (Nothofagus glauca (Phil.) Krasser), a native forest species widely distributed in central Chile. Using the water-drop-penetration-time method, post-fire water repellency was evaluated at different depths (on the mineral soil surface and 5 mm below it) for a Hualo stand. Comparative data were obtained from a neighboring 11-year-old Monterrey pine (Pinus radiata D. Don) plantation. Both stands were located near Santa Olga, one of the towns that were totally consumed by the wildfire. A Chi-Square statistical analysis was used to determine significant differences among stands and soil depths. Results suggested that the abundant Hualo native forest species exhibited strong potentials to form fire-induced water repellent layers. Differences were mainly in depth between the two species. As wildfires in Chile are expected to increase in frequency and intensity, the authors strongly recommend post-fire flood control practices on Hualo-burned drainage areas located upstream from human settlements, as well as erosion and sediment control techniques to avoid post-fire desertification processes.
Highlights
Chile witnessed the worst wildfire season on record during the 2017’s summer season
The experimental station has an area of 392 ha and there are two main land uses in the area: Monterrey pine plantations and Hualo native forests
Since the HUALO site the one with the steepest terrain, it makes sense to assume that surface finer particles migrated downs lope leaving the soil surface much coarser textured (Garcia-Chevesich, 2015)
Summary
Chile witnessed the worst wildfire season on record during the 2017’s summer season. This catastrophic event originated from multiple ignitions at different locations within the south-central portion of the country. All the ignitions had an area extent bigger than ever before, totaling a burned area of more than 600,000 ha. Such fire behavior was explained by the convergence of high wind speeds, extremely high temperatures (after several heat waves), low relative humidity in the air, topography difficult to access (mostly mountainous terrains) and an unusual presummer rainfall event that produced abundant fine fuels (Urrutia-Jalabert et al, 2018). A total of 11 people died and thousands lost their homes, not to mention the millions of dollars cost of economic losses
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