Burning in the National Forests

[sockwell]

I saw a post on here (I think) a little while back about the timing of the US Forest Service's controlled burning in the Talladega National Forest in Alabama.  The post expressed concerns about the burns being done during the nesting season.  Here is a link to an article that was in the Daily Home this morning.  It is basically a response to a written complaint they received about the matter.

www.dailyhome.com/view/full_story/18625899/article--Even-the-turkeys--benefit-from-prescribed-burns?instance=home_lead_story

Regardless on anyone's stance on the matter, hearing the other side is usually a good thing.

[CASH]

I love burns.  I was in the Talladega forest when they burned this year.  My only issue was they burned popular hunting areas opening weekend.  Plus the wind shifted one evening and blew the smoke into our campsite, just about choked me out.

Other than that, keep burning!

[Skeeterbait]

Burns are very productive to turkey habitat.  Adult birds will get out of the way.  The only issue is if you burn thousands of acres just as nests are hatching or poults are still young enough to not be able to fly well.  The burn can harm the population recruitment for a couple years in a localized  area if that happens.  A land owner has the luxury of shifting his burning a month to avoid this.  National forest managers probably do not have the luxury to do so with their schedule. 

[fsu33952]

This letter was written in response to a letter that a guy wrote several weeks ago about the burns. I know some of these guys that are into this and see both sides of it. Their main complaint is that the burns were outside of the prescription outlined within the burn plan but really did a bad job of relaying that in the letter. I am not sure if it was too hot or too dry or too windy or what but there were flames that went up 20 or 30 feet in the trees, actually killing a lot of trees in an area. They burned large continuous tracts of land(I think about 2500 acres). I am sure that now that such a stink has been raised about it that the forest service will be more conscious next year and it won't happen again. I think it is probably a combination of things at work. I personally believe that it was a prescribed burn that turned into a accidental wildfire that motivated the guy to write that first letter that this one was in response to. The story/rumor I am hearing on the street is that someone within the forest service decided to burn when conditions were not ideal and it got out of hand.
This is the first story in the back and forth saga.

http://www.dailyhome.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Local+man+seeks+support+for+ban+on+control+burns+during+nesting-+mating+seasons%20&id=18377001

[hootn]

bob it wasnt that bad, it was your cooking that was the main problem......

this past spring was not the first time they have burned in the forest the first week of the season. i know of at least 4 or 5 times before. in fact one area was burnt last year i think or the year before. the area bob and i are talking about is just west and south of mapelsville.. in the article i think they are actually talking about he forest in talladgea county. i have never hunted there.. if bamapround was here he could comment about the fire getting out of hand. he would tell me they were about to burn where we hunt. the forest service would contact the weather service to get the weather forecast  and go from there.

scott

[Spring_Woods]

It does Effect the hardwoods to an extent. It will damage trees internally like maple, white oak and red oak. Dont argue. I've seen it first hand.

I agree with burning from a wildlife perspective, but not timber management.

[fsu33952]

I will try to go up there in the next few days and takes some pictures of the fire that has them in such a tizzy so you can see it for yourselves. It is on Forest service road 637 in the Clay County Section of Talladega National Forest. I think if the USFS would have waited about five more days to burn nothing would have been said because everybody would have been on the river fishing. A little of the emotion probably comes in from the fact of that the forest service burned the one patch of woods that is close enough for everybody to hunt before going to work during the week and the turkeys were gobbling their tales off there and hardly anywhere else. This guy that wrote the article isn't just some old dumb hillbilly with his panties a wad. There are a pile folks with about a million years of experience turkey hunting along with some retired forest service guys with about a million years of prescribed burning experience mixed in there. If the fire burns hot enough to burn all the way to the red dirt and not leave any duff then it burned a little too hot. The guy wrote the article primarily because when he called the forest service to complain this Layfield guy in the article wouldn't even provide the common courtesy of taking his call. I guess he left his number and was promised a call back and never got that. It all boils down to poor public relations and some hurt feelings. These folks understand the purpose and benefits of a good burn perfectly well. This burn was suspect at best.

[Doug]

The Forest Service seems to do burns during turkey season every year here, too, so don't feel alone.  One time I took my buddy to one of my turkey spots - a day or so before we were going to hunt - and the stumps were still on fire, smoke everywhere.

Last  year, me and another buddy ran into more controlled burns in the same general area.

Last time I was out this year, I was within a mile or so of another controlled burn.

I don't really care; I think it results in better habitat, but I hope they're not burning the nests full of eggs.

[Turkey Trot]

It does, that's the difference in running a Jan cool, dormant season burn, and an April or May warm, growing season burn. You can specifically target the species you want to kill or not kill. That being said, most of your southern national forests are primarily managed for pine species.

I agree.  I'm not in forestry but have seen it firsthand.  If you want to kill out the trees that are considered a nuisance, like sweet gum, burning them later in the year while they are budding and leafing will kill them.  Burn them in the winter and they often bud in the late spring.  Timing of prescribed burns is important and fire is a useful timber management practice.   

[BOFF]

It does Effect the hardwoods to an extent. It will damage trees internally like maple, white oak and red oak. Dont argue. I've seen it first hand.

I agree with burning from a wildlife perspective, but not timber management.

While burning is useful in hardwoods, it's more practiced for pines.

For pine plantations, it is definitely a timber management tool.

We burn our plantations about every 3-4 years, ourselves, and have been doing so for about 20-22 years.

We burn every year, some tract, some where.

As for the trees turning brown, as long as the very top needles stay green, the trees will live.


God Bless,
David B.

[fsu33952]

What happens if it burns so hot that there is very little duff left on the ground to hold the seeds of plants that sprout back within a few days? Nothing, at least for a while. Normally when they burn within a week or two and a rain, green starts to sprout up. The particular fire that was discussed in the article that started this thread is pretty much as dead now as it was three weeks ago when they burned it. With all the rain and pretty weather we have had it should be growing already. I think that 95% of the ground the Forest Service burned up there in the Talladega National Forest was perfectly fine. This one was out of whack. It happens all the time that prescribed burns go bad somewhere in this country. There was one in Colorado a month or so ago that got too hot and burned up all kinds of land, houses and I believe even killed a few people. They didn't plan it that way regardless of how many pages of burn plan they go through or how many days they prepare. Prescribed burns do not always go as plan.

[BOFF]

What happens if it burns so hot that there is very little duff left on the ground to hold the seeds of plants that sprout back within a few days? Nothing, at least for a while. Normally when they burn within a week or two and a rain, green starts to sprout up. The particular fire that was discussed in the article that started this thread is pretty much as dead now as it was three weeks ago when they burned it. With all the rain and pretty weather we have had it should be growing already. I think that 95% of the ground the Forest Service burned up there in the Talladega National Forest was perfectly fine. This one was out of whack. It happens all the time that prescribed burns go bad somewhere in this country. There was one in Colorado a month or so ago that got too hot and burned up all kinds of land, houses and I believe even killed a few people. They didn't plan it that way regardless of how many pages of burn plan they go through or how many days they prepare. Prescribed burns do not always go as plan.

True.

If you burn long enough things can happen. Much like hunting, we don't wish to make a non-lethal shot, but it can happen.

God Bless,
David B.