As I drove home from the Abitibi Canyon region of Ontario I headed south on Highway 144. A little bit north of Sudbury, near Halfway Lake Provincial Park, I came upon a large area of burnt forest. I had driven by it before, but never stopped to photograph it. This time I stopped to take a few shots and when I returned home I googled this area for forest fires. Several years ago, in May of 2007, a poorly extinguished camp fire would become known as “Sudbury Forest Fire #46”. An astonishing 590 hectares burned. What I found most intriguing here was all the White Pine trees seemed to have survived while the rest of the forest was destroyed by the fire. Upon researching this, I discovered that white pines can survive most surface fires due to their thick bark, mostly branch-free trunks, moderately deep root systems and needles with a relatively low resin content, making them less flammable.
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