Experimental fires for heather moorland managementin north-western Italy

In NW Italy moorlands are rare ecosystems whose structure and composition was managed by local farmers with rotational burning and grazing. Nowadays these rural practices have been abandoned. Consequently, moorlands are changing to woodlands, with the risk that the biodiversity inherent to this environment will be lost. The aim of this study, which is part of a multidisciplinary and long-term research project on moorland management systems, is to investigate the role of fire in limiting trees invasion. A series of experimental fires was lit in the Natural Reserve of Vauda, Piemonte Region, Italy, during winter 2005. This was carried out in order to study the effects of different fireline intensities on short-term trees responses. Vegetation was composed mainly by heather (Calluna vulgaris (L.) Hull ) and juvenile state of European aspen (Populus tremula L.) and birch (Betula pendula Roth), whose heights varied in a range from 0.2 to 4 m. Slope was constant and below 5% in all the plots. Ignitions were carried out along a line at the shortest side of each plot; both head fires and back fires were utilised. In this paper we describe the experimental design, pre-fire and post-fire vegetation sampling, rate of spread and fireline intensity estimation. Fireline intensity varied from 100 to 3900 kW/m. Moreover there was no significant effect of intensity on tree responses such as top-kill resprouts, mortality and resprouts density. The short-term effect of fire on controlling trees invasion is not yet clear.