On April 25th of last year, I was able to photographically document a prescribed burn of the wet pine savannah surrounding the Visitors Center at Mississippi Sandhill Crane NWR. Prescribed burns are a necessary tool in maintaining the health of the wet pine savannah that is fundamental to keeping the Mississippi Sandhill Cranes from becoming extinct.
Today, I thought I’d show you the results, almost a year later, of this burn.
This is the entrance to the Dees Nature Trail while the burn was going on…
and here’s what it looks like today. It’s hard to detect that a fire coursed through this trail such a short time ago.
The fire crew is expert at firing the savannah, but leaving signs and paths unscathed. Before the fire, this was a huge saw palmetto plant.
The fire invigorated growth, and today the palmetto is healthy and beginning to bloom.
You have to search among the fronds to find evidence of the burn. This speaks to how fire was a natural thing in the past before the white man interfered.
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You can see that the ashes of the fire provided nutrients to the soil so new growth began almost immediately, and will continue through this growing season. Many plants need fire to be able to reproduce.
The pitcher plants are literally rising from the ashes. By using controlled burns every three years, the fires do not get so hot as to destroy the long leafed pines, and bring a continued vibrancy to the savannah. This is such a cool ecosystem!
I had a new visitor outside my table window today. My guess is it’s a lizard or skink of some sort, but I’ve never seen one quite like this one before. I’ll be working on trying to identify it in the next couple of days.
Tomorrow, I’m thinking it’s about time for a little road trip to somewhere new to me. Perhaps I’ll pack a lunch and head over into Alabama and check out a COE park northeast of Mobile…
Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later, Judy
Your pictures sure illustrate the effectiveness of a controlled burn. Thanks Judy.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting to see the before and after pictures of the controlled burn.
ReplyDeleteExcellent job of showing the importance of the burns. Great pictures!
ReplyDeleteI never would have believed that a fire could be so beneficial until you showed the before and after pictures and explained it so well. Do you show this kind of thing to visitors to the refuge? It is certainly informational.
ReplyDeletehttp://travelinglongdogs.blogspot.com/
I've been reading about the wildfires at Mesa Verde N.P. that happened in the year 2000. The books states "It is doubtful that the ancestral Puebloans experienced any catastrophic wildfires. They did not suppress the natural fire cycle and they used dead wood for cooking and heating."
ReplyDeleteA burned forest is actually "reforestation" in my opinion...fun to watch what happens after a burn... the phoenix rises from the ashes.
ReplyDeleteThe saw palmetto is quick to rise again after a fire. Find a niche and fill it! That's its motto. We saw a lot of it in recently burned forest in Florida.
ReplyDeleteI understand the importance of prescribed burns in keeping down the undergrowth and in nourishing the soil for new growth, but the results I witnessed at Lassen in 2009 made me feel sick. I didn't get back the next year to see the good results, but the burned area looks like destruction right after a fire. It's a good thing nature reacts positively to this sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteThanks Judy that was interesting
ReplyDeleteI knew nothing about a controlled burned. Thanks so much for sharing your photos and knowledge. This was really interesting. ~wheresweaver
ReplyDeleteWe have so much dead and flammable brush in our woods that if there is a wild fire it will go fast. Right now of course everything is wet, but in a few months we will be living on a potential bomb. If you look hard enough you can find a few burned fence posts or a charred hollow in a redwood giving evidence to fire long past. We see a few in the mountains around us every year. Most of the land is privately owned, in small parcels, so a proscribed burn could never be organized.
ReplyDeleteinteresting how the controlled burn is good for the ecosystem..thanks for the lesson!!
ReplyDeleteThis is a good thing to share. Most people have no clue about the benefits of fire in the wilderness. Has to happen. Just unfortunate that homes can go up with the flames if they've been built in the wrong place. Mother Nature WILL prevail in all cases.
ReplyDeleteWe saw the same thing happening at Yellowstone when we visited after one of the fires ... it wasn't a prescribed burn, but rather mother nature at work ... by the time we went there a year later, there was a lot of evidence of new growth.
ReplyDeletei use to do many prescribed burns for Texas Parks and Wildlife and when I left no one took my lead and they quit doing them... last Bastrop State Park got wiped out by wildfire and had they continued my recommended management plan and burned it more frequently it would likely had been spared much of the damage is sustained...
ReplyDeleteGreat work, Judy. Looking forward to pics from your day trip.
ReplyDeleteYou have such a large following that your posts must do a lot towards educating folks. Too many people don't understand the need for fires... and a controlled burn is so much better than a wild fire or forest fire! Good Post!
ReplyDeleteThose guys and maybe gals (hard to tell in gear) have an important job. To many people want to interfere and try to stop this. Then when a really bad fire happens they start in on who's fault it was.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great post today Judy ~ it is very informative. I know they are needed but they are ugly for a while after...
ReplyDeleteHave fun & Travel safe
Donna
Great before and after pictures. Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeletegrew up in country, my dad had us burn our acreage every year...of course we hated it because the grass came in so pretty and grew so well (we were the ones cutting it !)
ReplyDeleteKind of like the saying 'out with the old , in with the new"
I love that they are now calling them "prescribed burns" instead of "controlled burns". I'm guessing one got out of control? I have a friend who participates in burns in a local state park. The weather conditions have to be just right or it gets cancelled. No one want a prescribed burn to get out of control.
ReplyDeleteI've witnessed controlled burns of prairie in the midwest and it is fascinating to see how quickly it all comes back. Like the Wet Savanna to maintain prairies the burns are necessary and a thing mother nature use to do regularly before man intervened and stated crowding out the prairie. Great photos.
ReplyDeleteDown here in Honduras they seem to burn off fields and roadsides on a regular basis. As a bonus on the roadsides it also burns the trash left there. No long-term ill results that I've seen, although it does indeed look dramatic right after it's burned.
ReplyDeleteLast summer, Gulf State Park in AL had a huge fire started by a camper dumping hot coals in their campsite. This winter, the snowbirds were all upset because all the trees were gone. They confined the fire to the wooded area and the campsites and buildings were untouched. While we were there, you could see the changes almost daily. The biggest change was the number of birds now in this area. Other years you were lucky if you saw a couple.
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