Factors affecting post-fire crown resprouting of cork oak trees in a north western stand of Algeria

Abstract: Post-fire epicormic resprouting is an efficient means by which many burned woody plants reconstruct their above-ground biomass lost by fire, leading to the rapid recovery of the forest. For cork oak, knowledge of the rate of this response is important and considered as an indicator of the tree sanitary recovery, allowing foresters to program the harvesting of burned oaks to produce a more economical cork. In order to study the factors affecting the cork oak, we subjected and assessed in 2016 the resprouting rate of 235 trees burned in 2012 with a binary logistic regression based on tree vigor (> 60% of crown recovery) and tree dieback. The results showed that the probability of a good health recovery increases with decreasing fire intensity on the trunk and bark thickness and increasing of the trees height. Three years are the minimum time to extract burned cork from vigorous trees.