Short‐ and long‐term effects of fire in subtropical cloud forests on an oceanic island

The recurrence of fires has increased considerably due to human activity, affecting even forests where traditionally fire is uncommon. In this study, we verify the effects of degradation caused by fire in the Canarian laurel forests, which is a subtropical forest formation restricted to the humid montane areas of these Macaronesian islands. We evaluated the effect of fire by comparing a series of burned plots corresponding to fires from 1960,...