Prescribed Fire Awareness Week
Written by Bob Mickler
Governor Bev Perdue proclaimed Feb. 7-13 as “Prescribed Fire Awareness Week,” North Carolina’s first statewide recognition of the importance of prescribed burning. The NC Prescribed Fire Council, N.C. Division of Forest Resources, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and The Nature Conservancy promoted prescribed burning this week with a display of posters and other prescribed fire educational materials that promote prescribed fire in the third floor visitor’s lobby of the state Legislative Office Building in Raleigh.
Although this year’s strong El Nino and Arctic Oscillation filled the skies with snow flurries rather than smoke from the prescribed fires, it did not dampen the enthusiasm of the hundreds of North Carolina’s certified prescribed burners.
The governor’s declaration coincided with the 26th year of wildland fire management in North Carolina’s state parks land the launch of its 2010 Wildland Fire Management Program. State parks officials conducted prescribed burns on a record 1,879 acres in 2009 and have set a goal to burn 2,500 acres in the state parks to improve habitat and reduce wildfire dangers in 2010. The N.C. Division of Forest Resources, North Carolina Wildlife Commission, USDA Forest Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service, The Nature Conservancy, and private firms that conduct prescribed burns on private lands burn thousands of acres of state-managed land each year as a way to reduce fuel loads and promote healthy forests.
Fire once occurred regularly across North Carolina. Low-intensity fires burned every few years, fueled by grass, leaves, pine straw, and other forest debris. They kept the forest open, allowing sunlight to penetrate to its floor and reducing buildup of dangerous fuel loads. Fire suppression altered the landscape, allowing fuels to accumulate and putting people and communities in jeopardy. There are many fire-dependent ecosystems across the state from the mountains to the coast, including most oak and pine forests. Without fire, many native plants and animals will disappear due to lack of food, habitat and conditions needed for them to exist.
Prescribed fire is the controlled application of fire to the land to accomplish specific land management goals and objectives. These objectives include:
- Restore fire as a natural process in North Carolina’s coastal, piedmont, and mountain ecosystems;
- Minimize the risk of large wildland fires by reducing fuel accumulations and decreasing smoke and fire emissions from wildfires that threaten public health and safety;
- Promote ecosystem diversity in North Carolina’s fire dependent plant and animal communities;
- Involve and educate North Carolina’s residents about fire ecology and the role of fire in maintaining healthy ecosystems;
Prescribed burn participants receive extensive training to ensure that they are careful to protect surrounding communities, themselves and the land they are working to restore. Fire experts do a great deal of work before the first match is lit. They create a burn plan, which includes smoke management details, fire control measures, acceptable weather parameters, equipment and personnel needs. The plan also details how the ecosystem will benefit from fire.
The North Carolina Prescribed Fire Council brings together natural resource professionals, public and private land managers and others who support the use of prescribed fire.