>>1877118Fire susceptibility is not only a factor of bark thickness. It is primarily a factor of "bark thickness, rooting depth, crown characteristics, and the relative density of the stand" (
https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/gtr/gtr_se041.pdf) I really fucking hate this link because it's hard to read but the info is in there and Dale D. Wade is basically the final word on fire in the south. Bark thickness will increase with age and further insulate the phloem; bark can be really thick, but if you scorch a majority of your crown the tree will die just the same and the same goes for if you kill your fine feeder roots with fire. Also they are highly unlikely to have heavy accumulations of slash (slash being defined as medium to heavy downed woody debris and not logging slash, think 10 - 100 hr fuels).
Heavy duff layers (pine straw) are more of an issue for killing older trees that have had fire excluded from the stand and allowed a "duff doughnut" to build up around the base of the bole (Jesse K Kreye, J Morgan Varner, Leda N Kobziar, Long-Duration Soil Heating Resulting from Forest Floor Duff Smoldering in Longleaf Pine Ecosystems, Forest Science, Volume 66, Issue 3, June 2020, Pages 291–303,
https://doi.org/10.1093/forsci/fxz089), this is for longleaf pine but the same concept applies to mature loblolly.
Loblolly pine is actually listed as "fire resistant" (
https://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/pintae/all.html) and the historical fire regime of their range reflects this as well (
https://www.srs.fs.fed.us/pubs/ja/ja_stanturf010.pdf), but I'll add that pre-fire suppression and pre-commercial forestry loblolly was primarily found in drainages and wet areas. I think this is further supported by the silviculture handbook does not even list wildfires as a "damaging agent" for loblolly pine (
https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/misc/ag_654/volume_1/pinus/taeda.htm).
It's just not as fire susceptible as you think mang.
