Impact of Forest Fires on the Trees and Wood Quality—A Case Study for a Beech Stand
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper has merit; congratulations but important and different actions are necessary in my opinion.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
in some sentences, the English is poor and not clear.
Author Response
Reviewer 1: The document submitted by the author is clear and partially organized. It represents a good study.
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 1 to your effort and time spend to improve our work. And thank you very much for the constructive suggestions which will definitely make the article better.
Reviewer 1: Title is not completely adequate to the paper contents. It presents the topic of the review and it is not enough attractive.
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 1 for the comment. I changed the title from ”How quickly does the impact of forest fires reflect on the wood in standing trees” to „Impact of forest fires on the trees and wood quality – A case study in a beech stand”.
Reviewer 1: Keywords: please, I suggest to do not use the same word used in the title.
Author: Thank you very much for the suggestion. I changed the keywords as follows: ” non-destructive evaluation, stress wave, drilling resistances, wood degradation, beech, Romania”.
Reviewer 1: This section has merit but several references used in this context are not recent, excessive oldest and not always directly colleague with the title and the paper's aim. I suggest to introduce different and newest articles; for example: tested the application of IML to evaluate wood quality........ (In the following reference several test were conducted to compare tomographic approach and resistograph method).
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 1 to the suggestion to improve the introduction section with new studies. I introduced new 11 references, from which 7 were published between 2022 and 2024:
- Masah, M.; Diaz, J.H.; Alawode, A.O.; Gallagher, T.; Peresin, M.S.; Mitchell, D.; Smidt, M.; Via, B. Field assesment of downed timber strenght deterioraton rate and wood quality using acoustic technologies. Forests 2022, 13(5), doi: 10.3390/f13050752.
- Acuna, M. Timber and biomass transport optimization: A review of planning issues, solution techniques and decision support tools. CROJFE 2017, 38(2), 279-290.
- Pereira Domingues Martinho, V.J. Socioeconomic impacts of forest fires upon Portugal: An analysis for the agricultural and forestry sectors. Sustainability 2019, 11(2), doi: 10.3390/su11020374.
- Balasso, M.; Hunt, M.; Jacobs, A.; O’Reilly-Wapstra, J. Characterisation of wood quality of Eucalyptus nitens plantations and predictive models of density and stiffness with site and tree characteristics. Ecol. Manag. 2021, 491, 118992. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2021.118992.
- Guêné-Nanchen, M.; LeBlanc, M.C.; Rochefort, L. Post-fire peatland vegetation recovery: A case study in open rich fens of the Canadian boreal forest. Botany 2021, 100(5), 435-447. doi: 1139/cjb-2021-0194.
- Downes, G.M.; Harrington, J.J.; Drew, D.M.; Lausberg, M.; Muyambo, P.; Watt, D.; Lee, D.J. A comparison of radial wood property variation on Pinus radiata between an IML PD-400 ‘Resi’ instrument and increment cores analysed by SilviScan. Forests 2022, 13(5), doi: 10.3390/f13050751.
- Tomczak, K.; Tomczak, A.; Jelonek, T. Measuring radial variation in basic density on pedunculate oak: comparing increment core samples with the IML Power Drill. Forests 2022, 13(4), doi: 10.3390/f13040589.
- Gendvilas, V.; Lee, D.J.; Kain, D.P.; Kumar, C.; Downes, G.M.; Lausberg, M.; Harrington, J.J. Predicting wood density using resistance drilling: the effect of instrument and operator. Forests 2024, 15(1), doi: 10.3390/f15010157.
- Drew, D.M.; Downes, G.M.; Seifert, T.; Eckes-Shepard, A.; Achim, A. A review of progress and applications in wood quality modelling. For. Rep. 2022, 8, 317-332. doi: 10.1007/s40725-022-00171-0.
- Du, X.; Li, S.; Li, G.; Feng, H.; Chen, S. Stress wave tomography of wood internal defects using ellipse-based spatial interpolation and velocity compensation. 2015, 10(3), 3948-3962. doi: 10.15376/biores.10.3.3948-3962.
- Wang, L.; Xu, H.; Zhou, C.; Li, L.; Yang, X. Effect of sensor quantity on measurement accuracy of log inner defects by using stress wave. For. Res. 2007, 18(3), 221-225. Doi: 10.1007/s11676-007-0045-5.
Reviewer 1: In introduction section a short description about non-destructive methods - NDE - is necessary to introduce the aim and the M&M section.........
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 1 to the suggestion to add something regarding the non-destructive methods for wood quality evaluation in the introduction section. So, the introduction was improved with the requested information.
Reviewer 1: Lines 86-87 (M&M): when was conducted the sampling? after 4/5/6/7 years?
Author: Thank you very much for the question. ”The field investigations were carried out six years after the forest fire (2017)” and I completed it in the text.
Reviewer 1: Line 95 (M&M): In figure 2 there are not 24 sensors but more less. It is not clear if the use of 24 sensors produced in figure 2 11 or less wave point.
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 1 for the suggestion to clarify the number of the sensors. I completed the text with the following sentence: ” The Arbotom sound tomograph comes equipped with 24 sensors, from which are used, most of the time, a smaller number of sensors, like is showed in Fig. 2..”
Reviewer 1: Line 105 (M&M): 7 is obligatory number of repetition or not? statistical data? mean? which approach?
Author: Thank you very much for the question. No, is not mandatory to apply 7 hits to each sensor. In the literature it is mentioned that the number of hits have to vary from 5 to 10, according to the noise level in the area of investigations. Even if the study area was a silent one, I choose to apply 7 hits to each sensor, because each sound wave which travel between the sensors which play emitter and received role adjust the errors values (indicated in a window in the specific soft of Arbotom). These errors have to be less than 10% (literature) and after 7 hits almost all the errors hade values less than 7%.
Reviewer 1: Line 126 (M&M): what means relative?
Author: Thank you very much for the question. In the literature is mentioned that resistograph measure the relative resistance of wood to drilling, because it is expressed in percents, from 0 to 100%. In the new studies, which involved new versions of the IML Resi resistograph the data can be processed by a specific soft, but in the case of the old types (like this used in the research – IML Resi F-500 S - made on 2011), the data are written on waxed paper by the resistograph and it is very difficult to get the precise amplitude of resistances. In this situation, the operator can only estimate the variation in wood resistances, and not the real amplitude. This is the reason why I choose to use “relative resistances” and not the amplitude interval of variation. Thank you very much!
Reviewer 1: Line 129 (M&M): ”tend to zero” not clear.
Author: I would like to thank to the Reviewer 1 for this mention. I reformulate this part in the paper from “tent to zero” to “are almost zero”.
Reviewer 1: Discussions: I suggest to improve with different and recent references
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 1 to the suggestion to improve the discussion section according to the new studies. So, the discussions were improved.
Reviewer 1: Line 339 (Discussions): replace ”destruction” with ” reduction”
Author: Done, thank you very much!
Reviewer 1: Line 365-369 (Conclusions): please, rephrase this long sentence.
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 1 for this suggestion. I split the long sentence in two short sentences.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript discussed about quality of wood (tree) within the forest in Rumania. Some questions raised during reading and reviewing this manuscript, such as:
1. Determination the amount of the samples. The authors said that “After an inspection of the affected forest, there were chosen 21 trees for the field measurements”. What kind of inspection and why only 17 trees? Are they represented the population? (page 3)
2. In the results section, authors mentioned: “Some tomograms indicate 137 healthy wood at the both analyzed sections (trees no. 1, 7, 10, 13, 15, 17, 18 and 19 – 138 Appendix A). On other trees appeared differences from a section to section (trees no. 3, 8, 139 14, 16 and 21 – Appendix A), because at these trees the base of the trunk had been 140 affected by fire. So, the tomograms for the section situated at 50 cm above ground 141 indicate some areas with low speeds and internal modifications of the wood structure. 142 The most of these areas were located at north – north-west direction. This was similar to 143 trees no. 2, 9, 11 and 20 (Appendix A), but in these situations the affected section is 144 located at 100 cm above ground. In addition, there are some trees at which the 145 tomograms indicate low speeds and structural problems of the wood both for section 146 located at 50 and 100 cm above ground (trees no. 4, 5 and 12 – Appendix A)”. Please make a scheme the location of the trees according to directions, so the readers understand.
3. Some discussions mentioned some fungi exist. Could authors add some proofs on them? Pictures for examples
Author Response
Reviewer 2: The manuscript discussed about quality of wood (tree) within the forest in Romania. Some questions raised during reading and reviewing this manuscript, such as:
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 2 to your effort and time spend to improve our work. And thank you very much for the constructive suggestions which will definitely make the article better.
Reviewer 2: Determination the amount of the samples. The authors said that “After an inspection of the affected forest, there were chosen 21 trees for the field measurements”. What kind of inspection and why only 17 trees? Are they represented the population? (page 3)
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 2 for the question related to the number of trees. After a visual inspection of the affected forest it was noted that there are trees with different signs of degradation on the trunk and roots. In order to have data for all the encountered situations, from the trees left in the forest were chosen 21 for the field measurements. The majority of them (17 trees) presented external signs or degradations which were caused by the fire; two of them presented other defects on the trunk (frost-cracks) and two did not showed any external sign due to the fire, so they were considered non-affected trees. I tried to choose the trees for investigation as representative I could because the forest was situated far away from the village. Each trip made with an off-road car took us almost 4 hours to go to the forest and to return from the plot because the forest road was very bad and we had to overcome a difference in level of almost 600 m. There we made only 7 measurements on day due to the difficult terrain and to the old batteries. These measurements assumed to investigations with the Arbotom tomograph and supplementary investigations with IML F-500 Resi resistograph.
Reviewer 2: In the results section, authors mentioned: “Some tomograms indicate healthy wood at the both analyzed sections (trees no. 1, 7, 10, 13, 15, 17, 18 and 19 – Appendix A). On other trees appeared differences from a section to section (trees no. 3, 8, 139 14, 16 and 21 – Appendix A), because at these trees the base of the trunk had been affected by fire. So, the tomograms for the section situated at 50 cm above ground indicate some areas with low speeds and internal modifications of the wood structure. The most of these areas were located at north – north-west direction. This was similar to trees no. 2, 9, 11 and 20 (Appendix A), but in these situations the affected section is located at 100 cm above ground. In addition, there are some trees at which the tomograms indicate low speeds and structural problems of the wood both for section located at 50 and 100 cm above ground (trees no. 4, 5 and 12 – Appendix A)”. Please make a scheme the location of the trees according to directions, so the readers understand.
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 2 for the suggestion to make a scheme or to insert in the text the results presented in the Appendix 1. I chose to make 4 figures, one for each situation encountered in the investigations (Figures 3 – 6).
Reviewer 2: Some discussions mentioned some fungi exist. Could authors add some proofs on them? Pictures for examples
Author: I would like to thanks to Reviewer 2 for the suggestion to insert some photos with trees attacked by fungi. In the Discussion section I inserted the figure 22 with some photos from the field.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComment for fire-3149562
The manuscript addresses the question, "How quickly does the impact of forest fires reflect on the quality of the wood in standing trees?" The topic is interesting. However, the results of this study do not answer the question. My suggestion is as follows.
- The title is interesting, and the Abstract suits the whole text.
- Authors should list the study purpose point by point at the end of the Introduction. This helps audiences follow easily, and I suggest that the results follow the study purpose (point by point) to show.
- Although I can understand the author's use of a sample figure to show the importance of the study results, using some statistical approaches may be more scientifically sound in an academic journal.
- Therefore, I suggest including some statistical approaches in the methodology and showing them in the results.
- Conclusions should follow the study purpose, not the summary.
- The figures in the Appendix are too many. If they are important, they could be simplified and put into the results chapter.
Author Response
Reviewer 3: The manuscript addresses the question, "How quickly does the impact of forest fires reflect on the quality of the wood in standing trees?" The topic is interesting. However, the results of this study do not answer the question. My suggestion is as follows.
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 3 to your effort and time spend to improve our work. And thank you very much for the constructive suggestions which will definitely make the article better.
Reviewer 3: The title is interesting, and the Abstract suits the whole text.
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 3 for the appreciation. I changed the title from ”How quickly does the impact of forest fires reflect on the wood in standing trees” to „Impact of forest fires on the trees and wood quality – A case study in a beech stand”.
Reviewer 3: Authors should list the study purpose point by point at the end of the Introduction. This helps audiences follow easily, and I suggest that the results follow the study purpose (point by point) to show.
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 3 for the suggestion regarding the objectives of the study. I pointed these objectives at the end of the introduction section.
Reviewer 3: Although I can understand the author's use of a sample figure to show the importance of the study results, using some statistical approaches may be more scientifically sound in an academic journal.
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 3 for the suggestion to apply some statistical approaches. I completed the article with descriptive statistical indicators for the sound waves speeds and I grouped the speeds in categories so the data could be much easier to correlate with the tomograms (figures 3-5). In addition, I completed the resistograms with the direction of drilling and the sound wave speed according to the direction of performing the resistogram (figures 12, 15, 18 and 21).
Reviewer 3: Therefore, I suggest including some statistical approaches in the methodology and showing them in the results.
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 3 for the suggestion. I completed the methodology and results sections with the statistical approaches. The results were materialized in figures 3 – 5.
Reviewer 3: Conclusions should follow the study purpose, not the summary.
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 3 for the suggestion regarding the conclusions. I rewritten the objectives of the study at the end of Introduction section, point by point, and now the conclusions are related to the results and objectives, and not with the abstract. Thank you very much!
Reviewer 3: The figures in the Appendix are too many. If they are important, they could be simplified and put into the results chapter.
Author: I would like to thank to Reviewer 3 for the suggestion related to the Appendix 1. I chose to make 4 figures, one for each situation encountered in the investigations (figures 6-9).
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI reviewed the revised manuscript and the Author response to report and found that the manuscript of this version has been improved following my suggestion. The authors listed the study's purpose using a point-by-point that could let audiences easily follow the results of the study. It also helps draw conclusions. Since this manuscript has been improved, I recommend it for publication in this journal.`
