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TECHNICAL REPORTS

Landscape and Watershed Processes

Wildfire Effects on Soil Nutrients and Leaching in a Tahoe Basin Watershed

^a Natural Resources and Environmental Science, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557
^b USDA Agricultural Research Service, 920 Valley Road, Reno, NV 89512

^* Corresponding author (dwj{at}cabnr.unr.edu)

Received for publication May 2, 2005. A wildfire burned through a previously sampled research site, allowing pre- and post-burn measurements of the forest floor, soils, and soil leaching near Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Fire and post-fire erosion caused large and statistically significant (P 0.05) losses of C, N, P, S, Ca, and Mg from the forest floor. There were no statistically significant effects on mineral soils aside from a decrease in total N in the surface (A11) horizon, an increase in pH in the A11 horizon, and increases in water-extractable SO₄^2– in the A11 and A12 horizons. Burning caused consistent but nonsignificant increases in exchangeable Ca²⁺ in most horizons, but no consistent or statistically significant effects on exchangeable K⁺ or Mg²⁺, or on Bray-, bicarbonate-, or water-extractable P concentrations. Before the burn, there were no significant differences in leaching, but during the first winter after the fire, soil solution concentrations of NH₄⁺, NO₃^–, ortho-P, and (especially) SO₄^2– were elevated in the burned area, and resin lysimeters showed significant increases in the leaching of NH₄⁺ and mineral N. The leaching losses of mineral N were much smaller than the losses from the forest floor and A11 horizons, however. We conclude that the major short-term effects of wildfire were on leaching whereas the major long-term effect was the loss of N from the forest floor and soil during the fire.

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