Yesterday, the Fire Brigade in collaboration with the Consortium of the Serra de Llaberia, is applying low intensity fire in a pine forest of Llaberia. This action, named prescribed burning, intends to imitate the fire that would occur by the action of lightning, and aims at ensuring conservation of Corsican pine habitat 

The Forest Science Centre of Catalonia (CTFC) will be in charge of tracking the effects of burning, assessing the effects of natural fire on vegetation in their natural season (summer).

The prescribed burning that has been done yesterday in Serra de Llaberia is intended to preserve those forests of black pine (Pinus nigra) which are adapted to a natural lightning fire regime. The effect of lightning fires, being recurrent and low-intensity, can maintain forest structure with adult and mature trees.

This structure greatly facilitates survival of trees in the case of fire, as it involves a treetopseparated from soil and a reduced scrub cover. This action is intended to operate on mature forests and scrubs with a very loadedcover, which could determine their survival in case of fire.

Moreover,thanks to prescribed burns, effects of natural fire will be evaluated on vegetation in its natural season (summer). Therefore, weather conditions that will achieve a low-intensity fire to remove scrubswithout conditioning vitality of whole forest structure will be searched.

For the execution of burns,they have usedhand tools and drip torches and a team composed of specialist firefighters. Guidelines set out in the burn plan drafted for the preservation of this community interest area have been followed.