Where there’s fire, there’s smoke

Despite growing up in the city and then in a heavily populated suburb in Connecticut, I know something about forest fires, believe me. Technically, I’m talking about brush  fires, but they do have something in common: There’s nothing good about either. Or so I used to think. I’ll begin with a confession. In our early teens, while my buddies Larry and Bobby and I were roundly praised by the fire department for helping put a good-sized blaze in the woods not far from my house, we have never glowed with pride. The reason: one of us kind of set the fire.

Larry dropped a match without totally putting it out and within a few minutes a patch of dried grass behind us caught fire. We we nt back and tried to stomp it out, but it was too late. Fortunately, there was no damage to any homes or to any firefighters, or to us. Still, the way that blaze ran through the field really scared me. In recent years the fires in California in particular seem to be getting more ferocious, burning homes and trees alike, and that bothers me a lot.

But now comes a study from the pages of the ACS’ Journal of Natural Products, which we describe, under a very nicely written headline in last Week’s ACS PressPac: The secret life of smoke in fostering rebirth and renewal of burned landscape. A forest ranger in Yellowstone National Park a few years explained to me the rebirth that comes from big fires in the woods, but this new study really gives some interesting details about how smoke works its magic.

The innermost secrets of fire’s role in the rebirth and renewal of forests and grasslands are being revealed in research that has identified plant growth promoters and inhibitors in smoke. In the latest discovery about smoke’s secret life, an international team of scientists are reporting discovery of a plant growth inhibitor in smoke.

“Smoke plays an intriguing role in promoting the germination of seeds of many species following a fire,” Johannes Van Staden and colleagues point out in the report. They previously discovered a chemical compound in smoke from burning plants that promotes seed germination. Such seeds, which remain in the undercover on forest and meadow floors after fires have been extinguished, are responsible for the surprisingly rapid re-growth of fire-devastated landscapes.

In their new research, the scientists report discovery of an inhibitor compound that may block the action of the stimulator, preventing germination of seeds. They suspect that the compounds may be part of a carefully crafted natural regulatory system for repopulating fire-ravaged landscapes. Interaction of these and other compounds may ensure that seeds remain dormant until environmental conditions are best for germination. The inhibitor thus may delay germination of seeds until moisture and temperature are right, and then take a back seat to the germination promoter in smoke.

To read more, go to smoke.

Image courtesy of iStock