Wildfires in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, spark a silver lining for woodland animals.
Bill Lea
Deer, bears and other large mammals generally walk or run away from fires such as those in Gatlinburg, Tennessee in 2016.
By the time the “Gatlinburg wildfires,” as they came to be known, began sweeping the Great Smoky Mountains in November 2016, extreme drought had already parched much of the Southeast. By early December, flames allegedly sparked by teenagers in the park and fanned by strong winds had burned 16,000 acres, damaged or destroyed more than 2,000 buildings, and claimed at least 14 lives in what some call the worst natural disaster in Tennessee history.
Despite the devastation, says Dr. Craig Harper, an extension wildlife specialist at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture in Knoxville, the fires actually came with a silver lining for most woodland critters.
“It’s a very complex—and I don’t mean to be cheesy—but beautiful system in which fire causes change that benefits some animals but doesn’t necessarily benefit others,” he says. “Overall, direct effects on the wildlife following a relatively low-intensity fire are extremely low. In working with fire for over 20 years, I’m not aware of a single incident in which large mammals have been killed by fire in the eastern United States.”
Unlike the kind that frequently make headlines in the West, the Gatlinburg wildfires didn’t “crown” through the treetops but instead moved through the forest understory, burning small trees and shrubs but leaving the root systems, and most taller trees, intact. Many animals simply moved elsewhere.
“Birds fly away, large mammals walk or run away, and small mammals such as rodents, including chipmunks, are underground,” Harper says. “Box turtles typically go underground, under a log or retreat to more moist microsites that don’t burn.”
Bill Lea
The impact on songbirds varied depending on habitat. “Eastern towhees, for example, like relatively thick, brushy conditions. So they would be found somewhere else until that condition recovers and usually that would happen within about three years following the fire, whereas if you are a great crested flycatcher or a red-headed woodpecker, you like more open conditions in the forest for your foraging, so the fire was very good. Many bat species like more open conditions for foraging too. Even species such as gray squirrels, which of course require trees, can do better when there are forest canopy gaps.”
Another thing to remember, he says, is that most of the songbirds had already migrated to Central and South America when the fires started. Upon their reappearance the next spring, they may have nested in areas that didn’t burn or, within about three years, the species that seek thick vegetation returned to those original sites.
The low-intensity fires actually benefited deer, turkeys, bears and grouse, Harper asserts, “because of the increased foliage that was available in the spring after the fire consumed leaf litter. We’d already had two or three frosts by the time that fire occurred, so all it did was consume the dead plant material and it top-killed the mid-story trees, more than likely in most areas, and that enabled additional sunlight to come in and a much greater plant cover and diversity in the spring following the fire. That actually helped lots of wildlife species.”
One exception: woodland salamanders, which require moist conditions to breathe through their skin.
“That doesn’t mean that salamanders were ‘killed,’” says Harper, who notes that the populations are believed to be healthy now, five years later. “The salamanders undoubtedly were below ground when the fire occurred, but they may have moved to more moist areas, such as near drainages, when they emerged the following year.”
Says Harper, a proponent of prescribed fires to manage vegetation and guard against out-of-control blazes, “Fire is a natural phenomenon just like rain. It causes change, and that change is good for some species.”
The story above first appeared in our November / December 2021 issue. For more like it subscribe today or log in with your active BRC+ Membership. Thank you for your support!