Saturday, June 16, 2007


The fate of our Southern longleaf pine forests ultimately depends upon managing burns in the wildland-urban interface, the WUI


Excerpt from "WUI, pronounced Woo--eee"

March 15, eight p.m., and I was back home with a killer sinus headache. Gray, blue, and yellow smoke swirled inside my sinuses. I wondered if the men I had been with on the day’s burn had similar ailments. But I wasn’t complaining. It had been a good fire. I was still excited.

The night before, Pat Ferral of Ferral Environmental Services had called unexpectedly. Short notice, he said, but he was going to attempt the prescribed burn of a 36-acre tract in the Hitchcock Woods of Aiken, South Carolina, and he invited me along. At first, I was reluctant. I had already been on several burns. I pretty much knew the routine . . .

But this, really, was the chance I had been waiting for. The question--to burn or not to burn--and the future of fire, at least in Southeastern forest systems, did not depend upon the prescribed burns of remote, rural tracts where the only complaint might be smoke blowing across a little-traveled county road. The fate of fire, and ultimately the fate of longleaf pine forests and upland oak woodlands, as well, depended upon managing burns in the wildland-urban interface, the WUI.

Aiken is home to one of the oldest, biggest, and richest equestrian communities in America. Although Pat was only burning 36 acres, “this is a big one,” he said. “We got a very heavy fuel load. It hasn’t been burned in fifteen years and it’s right up against property lines . . . There’s a lot of liability, there’s gonna be a lot of smoke, and we have to take special precautions” . . .

Pat was happy but intense. Burning pumped him up, and this burn, especially. It’s an understatement to say a lot was riding on it--not just his good name and livelihood, but a forest of mature longleaf, a row of million dollar homes, and thoroughbreds as pricey as BMWs . . .

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