Short-term effect of wildfires and prescribed fires on ecosystem services

Fire is a natural element of the environment that can have pervasive and beneficial impacts on the ecosystems. Wildfires can induce dramatic socio-economic and environmental impacts, while prescribed fires can have several benefits. Therefore 'fire is a good servant but a bad master'. Depending on the way, it is used can be advantageous or detrimental. Here, we study the short-term effect of wildfires and prescribed fires on regulating, provisioning and cultural ecosystem services. Wildfires occurrence have a detrimental effect on all ecosystem services, except Pest and Diseases Control and Knowledge Systems. On the other hand, prescribed fires use has a positive/neutral impact on most ecosystem services studied. The trade-offs observed using this practice are related to negative impacts related to greenhouse gases and pollution emission (regulating) and decreasing biomass availability for energy and timber value (provisioning).

Automated summary

Fire is a natural element with pervasive and beneficial impacts on ecosystems. Wildfires and prescribed fires have different effects on ecosystem services, with wildfires typically leading to negative impacts and prescribed fires usually resulting in positive or neutral effects.