Newfoundland Report

A Story of Fire and Fir
On the island of Newfoundland, prescribed burning has been
employed as a silvicultural tool for more than half a century, long
before we started operational-scale planting or pre-commercial
thinning. Back in the 1960’s, and earlier, the Anglo-Newfoundland
Development Company out of Grand Falls-Windsor routinely burned
their cutovers to encourage natural black spruce regeneration. In
recent decades we’ve used it very successfully to prepare sites for
planting, particularly in western Newfoundland. Here, as elsewhere,
“PB” does a great job of reducing slash loading, reducing the
humus layer somewhat, and making the planting job that much
easier. However, the primary purpose of prescribed burning in
Newfoundland these days is the removal of natural balsam fir
regeneration.