On an ATV, forestry technician Mark Parker patrols the perimeter of a fire break


Excerpt from "Prescription for a Burn"


Compared with the last prescribed burn I had witnessed, Unit 2.2 was trashed with undergrowth--abundant pine needles and leaves, fallen branches, and an encroaching midstory of hardwoods, mostly turkey, red, white, and water oaks. The excess of fuel on the ground made me nervous.

I waited with Don Cockman, Assistant Refuge Manager, by his truck, hoping to get a photo of the burn crew dropping dotted lines of flame with drip torches along the fire break or the edge of the road . . . Don told me that the lines of fire they were laying down would be visual cues for Terri Jenkins, the helicopter’s burn boss. If not for these, the helicopter’s crew “would have a hard time seeing the road” and might accidentally start a fire on the wrong side . . . A moment later over Don's radio I heard Terri Jenkins, the helicopter boss, say something about a dozen blue herons.

“There’s a beaver pond in this unit,” Don explained, “and a big old pond pine snag with a heron rookery.”

The rookery, Mark later told me, was “down in Black Creek bottom in a beaver pond. It’s too wet there, it won’t burn. The herons ate a little smoke, but that’s about it" . . .

Soon the helicopter was shuttling overhead and things heated up. As the aircraft banked fifty feet above the trees, I could see a crew member in its open door working the aerial ignition machine. White “ping-pong balls” fell in lines, fizzed, and burst into small circles of fire seconds after impact. Soon orange flames jumped through the woods, and gray-white smoke wrapped the crowns of the pines. . . .