Vegetation cover: Wickersham fire sites (at the Viereck thaw probe locations), 1977-2004

In June of 1971, the Wickersham fire burned 6313 ha in an open black spruce forest underlain with permafrost and provided an opportunity to study fire and fireline effects on the rate and patterns of permafrost, soil, and vegetation recovery. When wildfire burns through a northern black spruce forest the degree of soil organic layer consumption greatly influences the post-fire community characteristics. The construction of firelines with heavy machinery involves the complete removal of vegetation and the soil organic layer down to mineral soil and likewise affects the community characteristics after fire and fire suppression. This long-term study is a comparison between the vegetative communities of firelines, burned, and unburned open black spruce forests underlain by ice rich permafrost.
Vegetation percent cover for all species were measured in the fireline, burned, and unburned control sites on the east side of Cushman Creek of the Wickersham Fire Sites, as well as the fireline on the west side of Cushman Creek. This dataset largely focuses on the vegetation of the three east side sites (2004, 2012, and 2130) to corroborate the detailed studies of active layer depths and fireline surface level changes previously published (Viereck, 1982; also see datasets in related material section) and in preparation.>