.

.
Borrego Springs, CA

Monday, March 19, 2012

Prescribed burns

57 MS Sandhill Crane NWR3

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.

IMG_0923

                              This is the entrance to the Dees Nature Trail while the burn was going on…

IMG_7009

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.

IMG_0966

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.

IMG_7010

                The fire invigorated growth, and today the palmetto is healthy and beginning to bloom.

IMG_7013

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.

IMG_0967 IMG_7014

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.

IMG_7018

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! 

_MG_7059

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

25 comments:

  1. Your pictures sure illustrate the effectiveness of a controlled burn. Thanks Judy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very interesting to see the before and after pictures of the controlled burn.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Excellent job of showing the importance of the burns. Great pictures!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I 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.

    http://travelinglongdogs.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  5. 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."

    ReplyDelete
  6. A burned forest is actually "reforestation" in my opinion...fun to watch what happens after a burn... the phoenix rises from the ashes.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The 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.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I 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.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I knew nothing about a controlled burned. Thanks so much for sharing your photos and knowledge. This was really interesting. ~wheresweaver

    ReplyDelete
  10. We 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.

    ReplyDelete
  11. interesting how the controlled burn is good for the ecosystem..thanks for the lesson!!

    ReplyDelete
  12. This 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.

    ReplyDelete
  13. We 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.

    ReplyDelete
  14. i 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...

    ReplyDelete
  15. Great work, Judy. Looking forward to pics from your day trip.

    ReplyDelete
  16. You 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!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Those 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.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Thanks for the great post today Judy ~ it is very informative. I know they are needed but they are ugly for a while after...
    Have fun & Travel safe
    Donna

    ReplyDelete
  19. Great before and after pictures. Thanks for posting.

    ReplyDelete
  20. grew 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 !)
    Kind of like the saying 'out with the old , in with the new"

    ReplyDelete
  21. 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.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I'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.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Down 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.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Last 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.

    ReplyDelete