N.J. sets 6,800 acres on fire — on purpose

Asbury Park Press on 03/13/07
BY KIRK MOORE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU

Those clouds of brown haze on the western horizon are from the last woodland prescribed burnings of this winter, as the state Forest Fire Service and large landowners work to reduce the potential forest fuel load before the fire season officially starts Thursday.

"We did prescribed burning on 4,800 acres this winter and we'll probably get another 2,000 done today," state forest Fire Warden Maris Gabliks said Monday, as workers tended a large burn in Wharton State Forest.

Prescribed burning on cool days with light winds is one way to strategically reduce available fuel, Gabliks said. The state Forest Fire Service will allow that practice to continue until April 1 on a case-by-case basis, because ice and frozen ground had persisted late in some places, he said.

At the 9,400-acre Franklin Parker Preserve in Burlington County, staffers with the New Jersey Conservation Foundation have burned about 100 acres, mostly to reduce fuel but also with an eye toward encouraging growth of rare and endangered plants, said Tim Morris, the foundation's director of stewardship.

"The whole Pine Barrens is an ecological community that's influenced by fire," Morris explained. "Some species are fire-dependent."

Flowering plants like Pine Barrens gentian and turkeybeard can benefit from judicious burning and clearing, Morris said. "The trick is, the traditional hazard-reduction burn doesn't help all these species that much, because it's a cool fire," he added.

Wildfires can burn so vigorously they destroy some trees, and burn off pine needles and leaf duff on the forest floor, leaving cleared mineral soil where rare plants can take root, Morris said.

"We can't have a fire that hot because it's not safe," he said. Instead, the foundation can use a combination of low-level burning followed up with a machine called a drum chopper that clears underbrush and churns the top layer of soil, he said.

"It breaks up the duff and leaves little pockets of mineral soil, Morris said. "That’s what you get after a (wild) fire.”

With its drought-resistant resinous vegetation and dry, sandy soils, the Pine Barrens is one of the most inflammable landscapes in North America at this time of the year, fire experts say. Luckily for southern New Jersey, the region lacks the prolonged conditions of low humidity and high winds that have recently fanned fire in the chaparral brush of southern California.

As of Monday, firefighters so far this year handled 128 wildfires, fewer than this same time in 2006, Gabliks said. The peak time for fire in the New Jersey woods is mid-March to May 15, the period when warming weather makes ignition more likely, and before trees and underbrush put out enough lush greenery to increase their moisture content.

The relative fire danger now is holding at moderate levels, Gabliks said. "We haven't had a lot of snowpack, which can be a negative factor" affecting fire danger in early spring, he said. "Other than that, it depends on the weather in March and April."

Kirk Moore: (732) 557-5728 or kmoore@app.com

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