re: Tree Canopy and controlled burns

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Which species are you talking about?

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Anything other than an overcup, water hickory, or nuttall association. Those really wet bottomlands probably never supported much of a river cane community, so likely weren't very susceptible to burning.

Anything higher than that that might have only occasionally or rarely flooded probably burned at irregular intervals, especially if cane was present.

According to the USFS page on A. gigantea, it's often in a community with maple/poplar/oak and hackberry/elm/ash. Now, maybe those stands of cane were monocultures with few trees present, but it's safe to assume that the fires did not stay fully contained to the canebreaks, so those forests were exposed to some fires, albeit of low intensity. The article references some studies that showed long burn intervals on yellow poplar and oak-hickory communities--sometimes up to 30 years.