Scott Lanier, refuge manager, in truck, and Mark Parker, forestry technician/fire, on a prescribed burn at the Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge.

Excerpt from Chapter 1
“Fire Is Good”


The Carolina Sandhills are ancient. They are small hills, often just subtle risings and fallings in the land. It’s easy to imagine when you drive down a dirt road here or hike through the forest that the Sandhills are the time-wasted dunes or marooned shore of an unknown Paleozoic sea . . .
To an untrained eye, the pine forests of the Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge look, well, monotonous. . . . But the refuge harbors a remnant of one of the rarest ecosystems on Earth--a longleaf pine forest, a forest home to over 720 plant species . . .
It is good to know that you don’t have to trek to Alaska or the Amazon to find the wild or rare. Sadly, you don’t have to go far to find the endangered, either. At the NWR are plant and animal species hanging onto life with slender roots and talons. And one thing that these species and the forest share is the need for fire.
To find out more about longleaf pine forests and fire, I talked with Scott Lanier, Manager of the Carolina Sandhills NWR. Scott’s headquarters is a red brick building surrounded by 45,000 acres of tall pines, wiregrass, pocosins, ponds and purple-flowering green lupine . . .
“One reason we have wildfires is because fire has been suppressed for so long that when a forest finally burns, it’s catastrophic,” Scott explained. “Had prescribed burns been introduced periodically, we might not have experienced those wildfires.”
The Sandhills, he said, has a history of fires, both natural and manmade. “Native Americans burned off fields to grow crops and hunt game. Lightning also caused areas to burn occasionally. Our area suffered some real smokin’ wildfires in the early 1940s, but as the US Fish and Wildlife Service began prescribed burning, catastrophic wildfires decreased." . . .

Back at home, I dusted off a copy of William Bartram’s “Travels” and thumbed to a passage where the author, venturing from Savannah to Augusta in the 1780s, finds himself “on the entrance of a vast plain, generally level, which extends west sixty or seventy miles . . . This plain is mostly a forest of great long-leaved pine (P. palustris Linn.) the earth covered with grass, interspersed with an infinite variety of herbaceous plants . . .”
Nearly a hundred million acres of original forest lost to America, and never having seen a stand of virgin longleaf, I was incapable of imagining what we had lost. I promised myself that I would visit an old growth longleaf forest before the year was out.

The above photo tells a lot. A burn has just swept through. The ground is smoking, and to the right, a snag still burns. A big longleaf pine, bark singed but otherwise unscathed, dominates the scene. The needles of the younger pines are still green; the low flames never reached their crowns. Several young oaks which would grow into a midstory and threaten the longleaf habitat have taken a hit and may die. But nearby, taller hardwoods have survived, enough to provide mast for raccoons and deer. Though the understory is gone, the loss is temporary: in a few weeks, after a rain, things will green up. These low-intensity burns are a boon to the forest community, preserving the habitat and promoting new growth and food sources for the animals.

Den

Aaron,

Thanks for the comment. Sorry it’s taken some days to get back to you. Allison and I have been camping and kayaking on Lake Jocassee, SC. Stayed at the primitive Double Springs campground. Paddled to Thompson Creek Falls, sunned on the rocks, swam the cool lake water. Saw lots of butterflies, including a zebra swallowtail (my first sighting of one). And, oddly, saw ten or more snakes--which is strange because though I frequently paddle blackwater swamps which are rumored to be rife with reptiles, I rarely see snakes. The snakes we saw at Jocassee were beautiful--one Eastern king snake and possibly a timber rattler (black phase) in a rocky ledge at a stream (we didn’t get close enough to verify him), and as many as nine water snakes, probably Midland, but again, I’m not sure.
Simple questions--”Where do you see yourself in this landscape of fire? Does the book explore the complex longleaf ecosystem or is it more of a personal journey?”--are hard to answer. Dr. John Elder, a teacher and friend from Middlebury College, asked me similar questions, so you’re in great company. By nature I’m not introspective, and I’m spending some time struggling to answer and draft a reply--another reason for the late response.
As a writer, I’m not only in a vast historical landscape but in a bookscape of other nature writers; and if I have any sense I’m humbled by both. If I may point to one writer and say, “That’s what I aspire to,” it would be A. R. Ammons.
In Ammons' poetry, the speaker is often walking in a huge, ever-changing landscape, asking questions and getting answers from elemental forces such as the wind. Ammons doesn’t write with a megaphone or an agenda. He’s inquiring and humorous--traits which come from a humility which comes from understanding one’s place in the universe.
I’m not a natural scientist. My method is to field-trip with those who are, to watch and ask questions and faithfully record what I see and hear. My motive for writing is like Ammons’ in “Identity,” a poem about spider webs:

it is
wonderful
how things work: I will tell you
about it
because

it is interesting

It’s beyond me to mount a campaign to save longleaf forests, though, like rain forests and arctic ice, they need to be saved. The banner of ecological salvation is borne by more knowledgeable and authoritative people, by past environmentalists like Muir and Leopold, by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Longleaf Alliance, The Nature Conservancy, the SC Prescribed Fire Council and others, and by the score of people who work and talk in these pages.
I guess the answer to both your questions, then, is “Yes.” I’m on a personal journey through a complex ecosystem--but I hope my focus is always on the landscape. If my book helps promote longleaf habitat, that’s great. But like Edward Abbey, I want to spend half my time in the wild just having fun.

Den

Ben,

Thanks for the post. Interesting name, too--were you named for the Scottish Mountain? Allison and I tried to hike it once, but stopped short of the summit. Ran out of time, had to descend to catch a bus.
Like so many plants and animals that are taking it on the chin, white wicky (Kalmia cuneata) is diminuitive. It isn’t overtly impressive and doesn’t get much press. What is impressive is its tenacity, hanging in there against the odds.
Just last Sunday several of us from the Friends of the Carolina Sandhills NWR hiked into a pocosin (a boggy depression) in search of the plant. Forester Clay Ware lead the pack. The day was hot and humid, and the undergrowth of bay, swamp azalea, holly, sweet pepper bush and a hundred other kinds of plants we waded through was shoulder-high and as thick as fur.
As if to evidence its rarity, white wicky isn’t easy to find, and we struck out. When you do find it in bloom--and you’ll only find it in a few counties in the Carolinas--it’s a woody, hip-high stem with delicate, dime-size flowers; and it’s usually a few feet down the slope of the bowl of the pocosin. (I have an entire chapter dedicated to the plant.)
As we slogged through the vegetation, I kept thinking how badly white wicky needs fire. Historically, frequent low intensity fire was part of the longleaf ecosystem. A good cleansing fire in the pocosin would cut back some of the competition and give the wicky the chance it needs to compete.
To find locations (and more info) on old growth longleaf forests, try the Longleaf Alliance website, http://www.auburn.edu/academic/forestry_wildlife/longleafalliance/ecosystem/old-growth/oldgrowth.htm

Den

Two years ago, I stopped by the Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge near McBee, South Carolina. A freelance writer, I was casting about for something to research. The refuge manager, Scott Lanier, asked if I’d write an article or two on prescribed burns for local newspapers.
Prescribed burns, though controversial, are critical for preserving longleaf habitat--a habitat I knew nothing about. I couldn’t tell a longleaf from a slash pine or loblolly.
Fifty thousand words and 10 chapters later, I’m still learning about one of America’s great and threatened forests, and still writing. I’ve witnessed prescribed burns (even pitched in), witnessed the capture and release of venomous snakes and the translocation of endangered birds, field-tripped with ornithologists, hunters, botanists, foresters, wildlife biologists, fire management officers, geologists, and conservationists intent on protecting red-cockaded woodpeckers, white wicky, wild turkey, quail, fox squirrels and the forests they depend on.
The result is an upcoming book on a fire-maintained ecosystem, the great longleaf pine habitat which once dominated the landscape of the Southeastern US. This blog is an intro to that book. Excerpts from chapters and photos illustrate some of the topics.
Frequently, the blog will be updated with other excerpts and comments from readers.