Fire prevention with thinning operations in black pine reforestations. Results of a study on a regional scale

Abstract

The work has examined an area of the central-northern part of Calabria, in the province of Cosenza (Southern Italy), reforested between 1955 and 1960 with black pine trees on 1,535 hectares, divided in separate blocks with different surface. Applying a methodology in different integrated phases we estimated fuel reduction by thinning and corresponding caloric energy separately for the various areas. Results show that reducing stand density, by an average of 48% of tree number, 18.0% of basal area and volume,assuming that total combustion would affect only 15% of above-ground biomass, a 15%average reduction of caloric energy was estimated. Applying these results from the stand scale to the territorial scale, we estimated that thinning could reduce caloric energy from a minimum of 12,000 GJ/ha-1 to a maximum 37,000 GJ/ha-1.