Prescribed or Controlled Burns to Restore Longleaf Pines in North Florida.
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Spring 2014
I've commented a lot over the last year about the Longleaf Pine restoration I have been participating in. Should have done this bucket 3 months ago but every time I looked at the photos taken over the course of 4 Rx burns, the 200+ photos, I got stuck trying to find just a dozen and a narrative to go with them. Four burns, all different, all with their own specific details and highlights. Simply describing the 4 plots of land would fill a bucket.
That said, here we go. For the last year I have been working with Ms Helen at her 100 acres in western Gadsden County FL. Gadsden is mostly rural with a population of 46,000 scattered across its 528 square miles. Quincy, the county seat, only has a population of 7,000. I couldn't find totals but I'd say half the county is forested. Very little of that has Longleaf Pine, and Helen may have one of the more natural stands.
after
Much more below the dancing orange flames...
Here's a good place to go for research on Rx burning and why.
Tall Timbers is a widely regarded information resource for the areas of fire ecology, game bird management, vertebrate ecology and forestry. The Research Station is recognized as the home of the study of fire ecology and is an advocate to protect the right to use prescribed fire for land management.
Fire petering out as it moves down the slope into the heavily wooded ravine. We decided to let it go as far as it wanted and while a few Mountain Laurels got toasted, nothing burned that won't come back.
Here is another website with more information:
LEAFS - Longleaf Ecology and Forestry Society
The reason for burning - it's a natural event and the pine forests and understory plants evolved to depend on fire. Fire knocks back the hardwoods and weedy plants that are always encroaching. Fires naturally started in late spring and summer by lightening, then Native Americans saw the benefit and learned to burn. By the early 20th century, the old ways were forgotten and fire became the enemy. Suppression ruled.
Guy Anglin, a very happy Helen, and yours truly in the back resting on his shovel. She is carrying a heavy and awkward water tank & sprayer.
--- burn 2
While Helen has sections of natural LL pine surrounding the steephead ravine that runs thru the middle, 2 days later we were over in Jackson County with Guy to help him burn 70 ac of planted Loblolly pine. What a difference!
Here's Guy with his drip torch (kerosene and gas mix) - step step step; drip; step step step. This retired forester has done this for years.
His plan for burning is simple - crisscross thru the pines working into the wind. When the fire lines meet, there is a very small flareup and it's out. This lessens the chance of flares getting up into the treetops and taking off. Here I'm standing on the side of a depression pond with its own micro-environment.
--- burn 3
Billy the Butterfly guy with the Booming voice. Billy is what you call a "character"; he will stand out in a crowd, but that is a good thing. He and Marcia came out to help with Helen's burn the previous month so we were paying them back. They have 20-30 acres they are restoring with planted Longleaf and Wiregrass. Once the scrub and hardwoods were cut down, all this perennial Dog Fennel came up and the cut trees & vines resprouted. Eventually the pines will grow up, and with Rx burning, beat back the weeds. You think in decades when managing LL pines. All of us, being old folks, understand that we are working for the next generation.
We were overstaffed with friends - plus the 2 guys from the FL Forest Service and their heavy equipment and Cathy the County Forester. Those 3 did a much smaller section while we tackled the field of brush. I thought the burn was much more dangerous than the previous 2 as it was overgrown, hiding dangers, and changing winds.
For example - a small thicket of vines and laurel oaks, cut down once and growing back already.
It looks much better after. The small dark clumps are wiregrass. The small pines will lose most of their needles but the crown survives. Longleaf in its grassy stage needs this fire to start its growth spurt.
At one point I moved to the shade under a massive Southern Magnolia. I noticed a grasshopper going up the trunk, and when I looked closer, there were all kinds of spiders escaping the fire and going up too. I wondered how they knew the fire was coming - the heat, the smoke, us tramping around? And how did they know this tree was safe, that Marcia had raked the duff from around the tree?
--- burn 4
Back at Helen's we had 2 small sections to burn. The first area had been well-cleared by hand a year ago, the fuel was down and dry, the fire lanes plowed, enough wind from the proper direction, the humidity OK. So many variables to account for. We even had one person that radioed hourly weather reports on the changing conditions. Helen was working on her fire certification and Annie from The Nature Conservancy just over the county line to the west was the burn boss so everything was by the book.
Travis at weather station overlooking the pond.
a perfect burn - low flames moving slowly
"Lighter wood" doing what it does best.
Resting as directions are given for the second burn of the day. This area did not have the underbrush cleared, or the turkey and laurel oaks chopped down, or the 100s of scrubby sparkleberry whacked off like the previous section.
Testing before we dispersed to opposing sides. Yup, it's burning. They said sometimes it just won't burn and you pack up and go home.
The highlight of the day was going back to the morning's burn and walking down into the steepheads where we had let the fire run out and found it creeping down the slopes to the seepage streams. You could crawl faster, on your back, with both legs tied. The flames were about 4 inches high.
And finally a movie - burn baby burn! From the first burn on Feb 17.
Related bucket -- Planting Longleaf Pines
The fire is out but we will burn again in a year or 3. Hopefully I'll get to a followup bucket showing the regrowth and the new wildflowers popping up. Now it's your turn for comments and observations from your backyard.
Update: My apologies for not crediting Dr. Jean Huffman for some of the photos. A biologist with the FL Department of Environmental Protection, she also spoke at the monthly meeting of the Florida Native Plant Society on the topic of "Plants and fire in Florida: What old pines and other native plants tell us about the history of fire in Florida." Jean is formerly the Manager/Biologist at St. Joseph Bay State Buffer Preserve and currently a Research Associate at Louisiana State University specializing in fire ecology. She is definitely not one of the "old folks".
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