Impact of a Long-Term Fire Retardant (Fire Trol 931) on the Physico-chemical Properties of Leachates from a Mediterranean Forest Soil: a Short-Term, Lab-Scale Study

Koufopoulou, Sofia; Michalopoulos, Charalampos; Pappa, Athina; Tzamtzis, Nikolaos

Impact of a Long-Term Fire Retardant (Fire Trol 931) on the Physico-chemical Properties of Leachates from a Mediterranean Forest Soil: a Short-Term, Lab-Scale Study

2015

Koufopoulou, Sofia | Michalopoulos, Charalampos | Pappa, Athina | Tzamtzis, Nikolaos

Long-term fire retardant (LTR) use for forest fire suppression and/or prevention purposes can result in chemical leaching, from soil to the drainage water, during the annual rainfall period. Also, wildland fires can have an impact on the leaching of various chemicals from treated forest soils. Large quantities of ions in leachates, mainly due to ammonium (one of the major LTR components) soil deposition, could affect the groundwater quality. The alteration of pH, total hardness (TH), and electrical conductivity (EC) values in leachates mainly due to nitrogen-based LTR application (Fire Trol 931) was investigated in this laboratory study. The values of pH, TH, and EC were measured in the resulting leachates from pots with forest soil and pine trees alone and in combination with fire after a simulated rainfall period. pH, TH, and EC values in leachates from all treated pots were significantly greater than those from control pots.

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