Abstract:Daxing'an Mountians was one of the most important forest areas in China, and also an area which was prone to suffering forest fires. Forest fires will damage tree trunks and lead to carbon losses. Fire damages, however, will also produce a stimulus in trees, which can compensate for the carbon losses caused by this injury. Well then, how many carbon losses could be compensated for by this stimulated callus due to fire damages? Three fire-scar discs of Larix gmelinii were collected at Walagan forest farm, Tahe Forest Bureau, Daxing'an Mountains, China. Discs were pretreated and the precise calendar dates were determined with cross-dating method. Variations of tree-ring widths along transverse and radial directions after firing were measured. Bole growths before and after firing were compared to discuss the effects of fire damages on bole growths of Larix gmelinii. Results showed that transverse tree-ring widths (along ring) after medium and low-intensity fires showed a narrow-wide-normal trend. This growth trend can be fitted by a cubic curve of y = 0.0069x3-0.1435x2 + 0.8485x + 0.5586 (DF = 3, SS = 0.62, MS = 0.21, F = 227.7, P<0.0001), where y is mean tree-ring widths, and x is distances from fire wound points. The reasons causing this trend may be due to the following two points: (1) near the wound points, trees will be separated itself from the injured parts. Chemical protection zones will be produced near the wounds to limit the diffusion of rot organisms and form the anti-corrosion layer in cambiums to protect the new growth after fires. Meanwhile, the onset of cambial activities was late and weak; (2) the parts slightly away from the wound points, the nutrients originally supplied to the burned area gathered here. The losses of bole radial growth due to fire damages can be compensated for by abnormal increases of tree growth after fires, but the amounts of compensation varied in different trees and fire intensity. Among these three discs, transverse growth release stimulated by forest fires all were confined within the one third distances from fire points. Year-to-year variations of radial growth were also shown clearly. Tree-ring widths increased after fires. Times of radial growth releases in these three discs were 14, 5 and 11 years, respectively. By comparing the areas of actual burned and theoretical growth discs, the radial growth for disc 1 decreased 67.2% due to fire damages, while the growths for disc 2 and disc 3 increased 6.6% and 13.7%, respectively. In summary, the losses of tree bole radial growth caused by fires can be well compensated by transverse and radial growth release, but the amounts of compensation depended on burnt degrees of trees. Therefore, forest fires could possibly cause the variation of tree bole radial growth. Additionally, tree growths after fires were also influenced by many other factors, such as tree age, species trait, and fire characteristics. Differences in these factors will lead to different compensations.