A new study found bird diversity increased in North Carolina mountain forest areas severely burned by wildfire in 2016, reinforcing that while wildfire can pose risks to safety and property, it can be beneficial to wildlife. The study results could help forest managers better predict bird responses to wildfire, and manage forests to benefit birds. …When they compared the numbers of birds in areas of different fire severity, they found an increase over time in the number of birds, as well as greater bird diversity, in forest areas where wildfire severity was high. By the fifth year, the total abundance of birds and the species richness… in areas of high-severity burns were twice as high as that in unburned areas. While it seems counterintuitive that high-severity patches supported more bird species, researchers said that’s because few species avoided the high-severity patches, but several species were more abundant or occurred only in those patches.