Prescribed Burning
It's a promising tool, this idea of to defuel forests and help restore ecosystem health. But it's risky business, too, and smoke clouds public acceptance.
I THOUGHT FIRE SEASON HAD ENDED. BUT THE SCENT OF PINE SMOKE IN MY NOSTRILS LATE LAST OCTOBER TOLD ME SOMETHING DIFFERENT.
Deep in Oregon's ponderosa paradise on Winema National Forest, my wife Maurine and I had just finished flagging a new interpretive trail as Forest volunteers. As we drove a remote road just east of Crater Lake National Park, we smelled the smoke. Then we saw flames.
We relaxed a bit when we spotted a yellow-shirted, hard-hatted fire crew from the Chemult Ranger district. They were matter-of-factly tending flank and ...
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rip," (see terminology sidebar, page 57) says a Forest Service fire officer on the eastern seaboard.
"When you're messing with fire, there's always a chance one will escape," echoes his counterpart in California's Sierras.
"The fuels are tricky..." adds Ron Meyers, who directs prescribed fires for The Nature Conservancy from his base in Florida.
Such concerns are real.
Paul Tine, acting Forest Service fuels specialist for the sprawling eastern U.S. region, remembers well what he calls "the lowest day I've ever had in my 18-year career." As fire boss on a 40-acre prescribed burn on Minnesota's Superior National Forest in the '80s, he had taken a little time off to attend a fire seminar, leaving his mop-up crew in good hands after about nine days of solid progress. Then he received a call from his wife.
"Honey, your fire has escaped!" she reported. Apparently a rogue wind had come up, and his prescribed burn had suddenly become a 2,000-acre "project fire," to use Forest Service ...
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Today we are capable of doing both efficiently.
On a roll
On the other hand, consider the good news:
The Forest Service's 13-state southern region is tops in the nation for intentionally torching its forests. According to Marc Rounsville, prescribed-fire specialist headquartered in Atlanta, "We're burning approximately 550,000 acres a year - more than all the other [Forest Service] regions combined."
The national forests in Mississippi are the best "producers" in the region, with 135,000 acres burned annually.
Rounsville cites "fuel-hazard reduction" (generally meaning understory burning) as the reason for most of the activity, which takes place in a pine forest area where ...
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Prescribed Burning. (2004, June 17). Retrieved November 23, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Prescribed-Burning/9615
"Prescribed Burning." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 17 Jun. 2004. Web. 23 Nov. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Prescribed-Burning/9615>
"Prescribed Burning." Essayworld.com. June 17, 2004. Accessed November 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Prescribed-Burning/9615.
"Prescribed Burning." Essayworld.com. June 17, 2004. Accessed November 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Prescribed-Burning/9615.
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