Flavie Pelletier

Ontario — …new research from McGill University reaffirms that aspen trees can act as a fire barrier. Flavie Pelletier, a PhD graduate and the study’s lead author, said aspen have always anecdotally been considered a species that is especially resilient to fire. “But the paradox is that aspen can burn very quickly by itself because it has thin bark,” she said. By analyzing satellite imagery of Canada’s boreal forest before and after wildfires, Pelletier and her colleagues found that large patches of aspen can slow down wildfires. The before-and-after images showed that larger patches of aspen were more prevalent at the perimeters of burned out areas. …[But] Pelletier said “there’s kind of a war against aspen in commercial forests.” Every summer, forestry companies in Ontario spray thousands of hectares of Crown land with herbicides designed to kill broadleaf vegetation which competes with coniferous trees that are harvested for their lumber.