A US pine species thrives when burnt. Southerners are rekindling a ‘fire culture’ to boost its range

WEST END, North Carolina — Jesse Wimberley burns the forest with the neighbors.

Using new tools to revive an ancient community tradition, they set fire to wire grass and forest debris with a blowtorch, corralling the embers with leaf blowers.

Wimberley, 65, is rallying groups in eight North Carolina counties to fight future wildfires by burning leaf litter. The burns leave room for longleaf pine, a species of tree whose seeds do not sprout in the brush that blocks the bare soil. Since 2016, the fourth-generation burner has fueled a growing movement to formalize these ranks of volunteers.

Prescribed burning partnerships are proving key to conservationists’ efforts to restore a chain of longleaf pines that forms the backbone of forest ecology in the southeastern United States. Teams of volunteers, many of whom work on private land where participants reside or earn their living, are filling the gaps in services and knowledge one step at a time.

Prescribed fire, the intentional burning that reproduces natural fires crucial to forest health, requires more hands than experts can provide. In North Carolina, the practice sometimes ends with a barbecue.

“Southerners like to get together and do things, help each other and have something to eat,” Wimberley said. “Fire is not something you make yourself.”

According to researchers at North Carolina State University, there are more than 100 associations in 18 states, and the Southeast is a hot spot for new ones. The Sandhills Prescribed Burn Association in Wimberley is considered the first in the region and the group reports helping up to 500 people clear land or learn to do it themselves.

The proliferation follows a push by federal officials in the last century to extinguish wildfires. The policy sought to protect the expanding footprint of private housing and the interrupted fire cycles that accompanied the evolution of longleaf, which indigenous peoples and early settlers simulated through selective burning.

“Fire is medicine and heals the earth. It is also medicine for our people,” said Courtney Steed, outreach coordinator for the Sandhills Prescribed Burn Association and a member of the Lumbee Tribe. “It’s putting us back in touch with our traditions.”

The longleaf pine ecosystem encompasses only 3% of the 140,000 square miles (360,000 square kilometers) it encompassed before industrialization and urbanization. But some pockets remain, from Virginia to Texas to Florida. The system’s vegetation still supports quail and other declining species. Conifers are especially resistant to drought, an increasingly common and serious danger due to climate change.

A large tent of environmentalists, hunters, nonprofit groups and government agencies recently celebrated a 53% increase in longleaf pine extent since 2009, encompassing about 8,100 square miles (20,000 square kilometers). However, those advances fell short of their goal of reaching 12,500 square miles (32,000 square kilometers).

Private landowners are critical to the coalition’s latest restoration effort. They own about 86% of the South’s forest land, according to the US Longleaf Restoration Initiative.

The association needs thousands of new homeowners to support longleaf management on their properties. The nascent burn associations are vital to their education, according to a 15-year plan published in November.

Federal agencies support the effort through activities such as invasive species removal and land management workshops. Nearly $50 million in federal grants are available for projects that improve forest health, including prescribed fires.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a “Longleaf Pine Initiative” in partnership with burn groups like the one in Wimberley. Farm bill money supports planning and planting. Staff can help install firewalls.

But applicants are increasingly competing for limited funds that cannot cover all necessary maintenance expenses, said USDA spokesman Matthew Vandersande.

Landowners say states concerned about liability are reluctant to send their relatively few burners to private properties and that private contractors cannot meet demand.

“When it’s time to blow out the match, you’re on your own,” said Keith Tribble, 62, owner of a tree farm in North Carolina.

While the state forestry services provide classes, Tribble credits the associations for the hands-on experience and crews needed to manage the pines with confidence.

Humidity and wind speed are the most important factors in a burn plan, according to Hitchcock Woods Superintendent Bennett Tucker, manager of a private forest in South Carolina. Pine oils almost always allow it to transport fire and normally burn with a relative humidity between 25% and 50%.

“With a prescribed fire, we can control the where, the when, the how and all of those factors by choosing the best conditions,” Tucker said.

Portable weather meters ensure that wind speed, temperature and humidity are within limits established in pre-written plans. The requirements can also reduce potential liability in the event of a fire. Uncontrolled fires are rare, according to studies by federal agencies and surveys of community burn groups. Wimberley teams have yet to suffer any, despite 40 burns a year.

Climate change is reducing the number of safe burning days. Rising temperatures cause lower relative humidity in the South and intensify periods when it is too dry, said Jennifer Fawcett, a wildfire expert at North Carolina State University.

As the severity and frequency of storms, droughts, and wildfires increase, longleaf pines could become even more important to ecological resilience in the South. Deep roots anchor them during strong winds and reach into the ground in search of water. Flames improve soil nutrients.

Additionally, the surrounding ecosystems have few known rivals for biodiversity in the U.S. Light spills through open canopies onto the sparse soil, giving way to plant-like flora that eats insects and needs exposure to the sun. sun and moist soil. Gopher tortoises feed on native vegetation and dig burrows up to 4.5 meters (15 feet) to shelter other at-risk species.

“It’s more than just planting trees,” said Lisa Lord, director of conservation programs at The Longleaf Alliance. “We want to take the time to restore all the values ​​of the forest.”

An educational campaign in the late 1920s known as “Dixie Crusaders” damaged those interdependent relationships. Federal officials turned southerners against the practice and burning slowed. The flammable needles and wire built up to dangerous levels of tinder.

Wimberley’s family resisted, knowing their livelihood depended on the fire. His ancestors first applied it to “exude” the lucrative pine sap distilled into turpentine or exported as sealants. Later generations burned to protect crops.

The burning looks different than when Wimberley’s mother dragged firewood known as “fat lighter” through the woods. But public understanding of its importance is returning and ranks are growing.

“We’re all a bunch of arsonists,” said Tribble, the tree farm owner.

Still, Tribble burns for a reason: he values ​​connecting with the people and the land.

Before the burns, weeds covered the ground, choking off the flow of water to parts of the property that were “completely dry.” Water now runs from marshy areas and the chirp of the rarely seen red-cockaded woodpecker echoes through the mature pines. Wild turkeys appear when smoke fills the sky.

Steed, Lumbee’s outreach coordinator, is encouraged by the resurgence of this proactive “fire culture” beyond the tribe that she says introduced it to the region.

As a child, she ran through her grandfather’s burned forests, but the tract has been fireless for about a decade. Steed plans to lead her first burn next year in the Wimberley woods and then manage a family property she recently inherited.

“It feels empowering,” Steed said of prescribed fire. “It feels like a very tangible way to connect with the past and also guide the future.”

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Pollard is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.