It sounds counterproductive at first: how can hearth be good for a forest? But, the brief reply is… sure, hearth is crucial to the well being of mountain ecosystems.
In Western Canada, wildfires are a pure and needed course of that form the landscapes we see immediately. As Tauck Director Ward Cameron, explains, hearth isn’t simply an occasional disturbance, it’s one of many key forces that drives the ecology of the mountain west.


On episode 35 of The Mountain Nature and Tradition Podcast titled “Flames throughout the border,” Ward explains that whereas people usually view wildfires via a lens of destruction, nature views them as alternative. Burn websites and avalanche slopes, locations we may even see as scarred, are among the many most efficient habitats within the Canadian Rockies. Fires assist enhance wildlife and plant habitat, cut back illness, management invasive species, and even create pure firebreaks that forestall future catastrophic burns.
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