Prescribed burn

When I went in to work this morning, Doug told me not to bother to set everything up in the Visitor’s Center.  It turns out that the fire crew was going to do a prescribed burn on the Dees Trail and the about 200 acres behind the VC.  It was decided the front gates would remain closed, so there would be no visitors today.  I was pretty excited at this prospect.  Just about all the refuges I’ve volunteered on have a fire crew, but I’d never been able to see a prescribed burn.

 

Back in the second half of the last century, fire suppression was the order of the day, and all fires were immediately extinguished.  Present thinking is that fire is a good thing for reviving the habitat under controlled circumstances.  Without burns on this refuge, there would be nowhere for the cranes to live and breed.   The schedule here is on a three year rotation for burning the savannahs.  It was time for the area surrounding the VC.

In a prescribed burn, the first step is starting the fire to consume the woody underbrush.  The long-leafed pines are built to resist this kind of fire.  It is amazing how much planning goes into one of these burns.  One of the fire crew handed me a walkie-talkie so I could hear all the communication between the crew members, and could follow what was going on.

After ignition, steps are taken to control the burn to wanted areas.  I was interested to observe that almost half of the fire crew were females. 

It wasn’t long before the savannah floor was ablaze.  You would be amazed how quickly the land will regenerate, and the bio-diversity will return.   The fire crew on the ground directed the fire through the entire trail area.  Then it was time to burn the savannah behind the VC.

After the ground crew burned a 100’ wide swath surrounding the 200 acres, the helicopter was called in.  They drop ping-pong ball shaped incendiaries out of the copter to ignite the inner circle of savannah.

It certainly is effective!  The fire sweeps through quickly, so the young bluebird family in this box remains unharmed.  I did see a cottontail rabbit making an extremely rapid exit, though.

Before man encroached on this habitat, fire was a natural occurrence.   My respect and admiration for these men and women of the fire crews certainly increased today.  What a great learning experience it was.

And what did father bluebird do during all this commotion?  He just calmly went about his job of catching bugs to provide for his family. 

 

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy