After meeting with Luis and Teresa and learning a bit more about the history and philosophy of MONTIS we started our trip towards the areas Vieiro and Costa Bacelo. Both areas are high up the mountains and required a 4x4 car for reaching them. It’s a beautiful drive through the forest and small villages. Pretty fast the burned areas started to show and I got pretty shocked in the beginning. The effects were severe and much more spread out then I have ever seen before. It was clear to see that my colleagues were used to seeing those effects and were less shocked. Whenever we saw something interesting or a good viewpoint, we stopped and got out of the car. From those points it was clear to see which areas have burned more than others.
Luckily the fires mostly didn’t get too close to the villages as firemen have stopped them there. I was surprised that a lot of the canopy, although slightly burned, was still on the trees. I then learned that most of the fires just burn on the ground and take in the shrubs, herbaceous plants and smaller trees. Most of the time they move pretty quickly and don’t burn the whole tree, but trees can still die from that. After a while I was able to see the severity in different areas myself.
There were areas where fires showed only punctual next to trees and a lot of vegetation was still around, which shows very little burning. Then, probably most areas that burned, showed much more then that. Here all the shrubs and lower plants were completely burned, the soil was black and covered in ash, some dry leaves and pieces of charred wood. The canopy of most trees was still partly there. Areas with more severe burning were mostly on slopes. The soil looked even more dead and black, which in combination of completely burned trees looked pretty devastating. Teresa explained to me why it burned more heavily there. If the fire moves uphill, it dries out all the trees above the fire. By the time the fire reaches the upper parts everything is so dry that even oaks or less burnable trees burn all the way to the canopy. Here there is very little chance of regeneration from the top, so the plants eventually die off and resprout from the root. Species like Hakea (hakea decurrens ssp. physocarpa) or Mimosa (acacia dealbata) thrive after a forest fire for multiple reasons and will outgrow oaks and other local hardwoods easily. Luis explained me, that the soil shows the intensity of the fire. If there is still black organic matter underneath, the ash it didn’t burn as hot as if the soil is brown directly underneath.
We hoped to see no burning around the waterline within Viero, as there was a good quality of riparian gallery. Unfortunately, we saw that it got burned quite heavily and it’s not sure if any of the older trees have survived. The river floodplain is quite narrow and surrounded by slopes which probably promoted the burning of canopies as the flames could reach them easily. On the Viero property it will be the focus of 2024/2025 to bring back a natural vegetation and reduce the upcoming of invasive species, especially next to the waterline. Around that were areas that used to be dominated by hakea and mimosa but were managed heavily in the past years. Now there is a big chance of very strong upcoming of these species again which will probably require a lot of effort.
As we drove back through the mountains, we crossed a street named the gates of hell (portal do inferno), which considering the burnt surroundings seemed kind of appropriate. It looked like a beautiful area to hike and spend time in nature. Teresa was saying that especially on full moon it’s magnificent, so that’s definitely something I would like to see in the future.
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