FOREST FIRE: CONSERVATION OF MASS AT THE SCALE OF A FOREST ECOSYSTEM
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FIGURE 2.12 While the trees and other plants, along with woody litter, may be destroyed in a forest fire, the matter that made up those plants and wood is not lost—it just changes form. Because the atoms that made up the forest before the fire are not destroyed, they can be recycled endlessly.
(U.S. Department of Agriculture)