Re-Introduction of Prescribed Fire

In recent decades, fire regimes in the south have changed once again through the re-introduction of fire in the form of prescribed burns. Since the 1970s, prescribed burning has become an integral part of forest management in the south. Although prescribed burns have been used by foresters to reduce hazardous fuels since the turn of the century, its use for other management objectives were not well accepted until much later. Today, public agencies are well aware of the integral role of fire in forested ecosystems and prescribed fire is applied to almost 4 million forested acres in the South each year (Wade and Lunsford 1988).

Most of the operational guidelines for using prescribed fire in forests were developed in the flatwoods of the "deep" South. Early studies there showed the benefits of prescribed burning in the maintenance of longleaf pine and bobwhite quail habitat (VanLear and Waldrop 1989). For decades now, prescribed burning has been used in these flatwoods for hardwood control, fuel reduction, seedbed preparation, and wildlife habitat maintenance (Buckner and Turrill 1999).

Prescribed fire has not been widely used in the southern Appalachians as compared to other areas in the South. Fire behavior is much more erratic in this region due to its highly variable topography and therefore operational guidelines developed in southern flatwoods do not apply. Also, the benefits of prescribed burns on southern Appalachian forests are still questionable since hardwoods predominate in these systems (Van Lear and Waldrop 1989). Buckner and Turill (1999) state that "establishing parameters (both fuel and weather conditions) and firing techniques for using fire for ecological and other management benefits in the southern Appalachians should be a major concern of federal agencies in this region."

The use of prescribed fire in the southern Appalachians tends to differ according to land ownership. State agencies use prescribed fire primarily for silvicultural objectives. The Forest Service uses prescribed fire in ecosystem management to achieve certain desired ecosystem conditions. In contrast, the Park Service takes a more protective approach to land management and invasive actions such as prescribed fires have been until recently, rarely used. (Buckner and Turrill 1999).

See: Prescribed burns