Scorched Area

a wooded area damaged or destroyed by fire. A distinction is made between scorched areas with destroyed and viable wood and those with dead or windfallen wood. Scorched areas can be centers of massive propagation of pests such as bark beetles and long-horned beetles, which decrease the water-retaining and soil-preserving properties of forests and are dangerous in terms of fires. Under the conditions of the extreme north, Siberia, and the Far East, the storage of wood often becomes impossible in the scorched areas, for they are bogged up and full of windfallen wood. In mountain scorched areas, the soil appears to be washed away. Dry sandy soils are subject to wind erosion in the scorched areas.