Flowing lava means destruction to settlements in its path and death to vegetation and all other living forms. It leaves behind barren and desolate landscape which for me and undoubtedly to many others is very beautiful and fascinating in its own right. Lava is powerful in the short run and usually unstoppable but eventually living nature wins and conquers it again.
It is amazing how tiny plants start growing on a surface which seems to be a bare rock without any soil cover:
These small ferns grow on a basaltic pahoehoe lava which is perhaps only ten years old. It is difficult at first for sure but plants are tough and will persevere and it gets easier with every new generation because there already is a small amount of soil to grow on. It may take some time (perhaps only few hundred years in Hawaiian climate or even less) but eventually we would not recognize the landscape because it looks something like this:
It is funny to me to see ferns as big as these. These plants are common where I live in northern Europe but they are small. It almost seemed that I somehow time-travelled to a Mesozoic forest and would soon meet dinosaurs as well.