Throughout the years we’ve found nothing that proves Mother Nature can’t take care of herself.

She hurls lightning for the show, drops tornadoes just to prove she can handle the after effect, can go without water for years upon years, and has set it up that she can take full advantage of one of the most destructive elements in the arsenal - fire.

In fact, in places she relies on it.

Just south of Auburn, the National Forest Service (NFS) conducts prescribed burns in the Tuskegee National Forest, the nation’s smallest National Forest, on a regular basis, burning areas in cycles that run between three and five years. The primary purpose for setting a forest on fire - the very thing Smokey the Bear was trying to prevent - is that the forest, through years of adaptation, has learned to use the flames like a nice, hot bath.

After a fire, while covered in ash and soot, a forest may feel completely clean.
Tuesday, April 15, Jorge Hershel, Tuskegee National Forest’s District Ranger, went to the front lines of an 879-acre prescribed burn in an area west of the Highway 29 and Highway 186 intersection, where everything smelled and sounded like a crackling campfire - a very large crackling campfire.

“Every acre of this forest that needed to be burned has been burned since I got here. Now we are starting another cycle of burning,” Hershel said, who began working in Macon County in 2003. “When we burn it’s anywhere from 80 acres to 1600 acres, which we did three years ago. But it all depends on variables such as weather, fuels and land shape.”

When the NFS initiates a prescribed burn, they plan based on weather conditions. Temperature and humidity need to be just right. It was 64 degrees with 34 percent humidity that Tuesday.

When conditions are favorable, the NFS uses a bulldozer to make trails - dozer lines they call them - around the burn area. Dozer lines prevent fires from jumping to areas the NFS has either already burned or isn’t planning on burning that day. If you ever run across a trail blocked at the beginning by a large mound of dirt, chances are it’s either an old dozer line or a closed trail.

Hershel said 12 people, an engine and a bulldozer worked on the fire last Tuesday. Two of which - Kathleen and Derek - were dressed in full fire garb spraying flames on the west side of Highway 29 about a half mile south of Highway.

With flames cutting through the brush right behind them, the two soot-covered, torch-bearing NFS employees from out West, Kathleen from Washington and Derek from Montana, said they spent the dormant season - the winter months - sweeping flames across the south. Both had just finished four prescribed burn in Georgia begun in February.

The torches they carried weren’t the typical acetylene or blow variety. Instead, the flames poured like liquid from the barrel, dropping straight from the torch to the underbrush. They call the calculated mix of gasoline and diesel “drip-torch fuel.” The two pros made flaming lines in the fallen pine needles that inched their way back from the road, disappearing into the woods.

Fire is a natural part of long-leaf pine ecosystems, and a controlled burning is one of the most valuable tools the Forest Service has at its disposal. The process burns the hazardous fuels on the forest floor that accumulate over time - pine needles, dead branches and the like - that would turn an unplanned forest fire into a destructive disaster.

Hershel said prescribed burns keep the fuel levels low that if and when a campfire gets out of control or an act of arson occurs, the flame height stays low and the fire is easily controlled and extinguished.

“Many forest eco-systems in the South depend on fire to maintain a healthy balance of vegetation and wildlife habitat condition,” a National Forest Service release reads. “Low-intensity prescribed burns help maintain an open forest floor by reducing some of the brush and mid-story trees that block sunlight from reaching the ground. By increasing sunlight to the forest floor, often more grass, fruits and seeds become available for the deer, dove, quail and other wildlife species. Also, by modifying stand conditions, prescribed burns can increase vegetation edge effects that many species depend upon when seeking travel routes, feeding spots or finding hiding shelter. This also helps improve access for hunters and hikers. In addition, it reduces the amount of fuel that would be available if a wild land fire should occur. This is very important for the safety of the people who live in and around our forests.”

Leaving Derek and Kathleen, Hershel took his Ford down the gravel trails in the forest, looking for Joe Smith (the Burning Boss), the man monitoring humidity levels, temperature and other weather conditions, as well as overseeing the entire burn process. Instead he found Billy Goodson perched on the back of a truck in the middle of the woods, his fire hat cocked on his head and his torch on the ground by the truck, waiting for other firefighters to join him to complete the burn in that area.

Goodson told Hershel his assigned area was burning slow due to all the new growth. Green vegetation doesn’t typically suffer heavy casualties in a prescribed burn. In fact, it gets in the way more than anything.

“I don’t know,” Goodson said acknowledging the rain a day earlier, “Either it’s wet or cold.”

From there, Hershel took the SUV out to Highway 186, where flames on the side of the road a quarter-mile west of the Y-Grocery were billowing smoke across lanes of traffic.

“Now that’s what we don’t want,” Hershel said as the vehicle came to a stop.
But the radio in the car had been chattering for several minutes, and though Hershel was mostly out of range, he explained the crew was organizing traffic control for the area. Sure enough, as his vehicle pulled into the smoke, the flashing lights of a Forest Service truck came down the highway guiding a car. Two signs were set up on either end of the road marking the burn area.

Later, Hershel said he received no traffic-related complaints about the smoke and no accidents occurred, as the Forest Service monitored the area heavily. Even still, later that evening, after all the work the NFS had done for her, Mother Nature threw Hershel and the burn team a curveball.

“Any time there is a fire there is going to be smoke,” he said. “When planning our prescribed burns, we try to select days when the weather conditions will allow the smoke to be carried up and away from sensitive areas such as cities, hospitals, highways, churches or other areas where we know the smoke could cause problems. Despite all planning, sometimes the weather doesn’t do what we expect and the smoke goes where we would rather it not go.”

An inversion layer crept down Tuesday night trapping the smoke from the fire near the Earth’s surface for several days. The next four mornings, the smoke lingered in the area. Inversion layers occur when the temperature gradient flips, moving the cooler air closer to the earth. It’s what creates fog and it isn’t something meteorologists were predicting for Tuesday night.

“We were out all night almost when that happened” Hershel said. “We had good dispersion (of the smoke) during the day, but it was just a really bad inversion layer. But, we were prepared and we knew what to do.”

Hershel said the team rarely receives complaints during prescribed burns. The area’s residents have grown accustomed to the process and understand the burn’s benefits to the ecosystem.

Other prescribed burns have taken place in the Tuskegee National Forest this year and nothing like last week’s suspended smoke has ever been observed. Besides, the Forest Service patrolled the roads during the evening and had signs out to warn motorists all week - no other complaints were received and no traffic problems were reported.

“Burning is part of the Southern culture,” Hershel said. “We’re going to use fire in the area because the area needs it, but, in the future, as we always try to do, we will be careful not to inconvenience any landowners.”

The final logs, still burning as of Monday (April 21) will have been extinguished by the time this article releases and the remnants of a smoky week will be all but vanished into thin air. But underneath the pine canopy in the Tuskegee National Forest, the ecosystem, with it’s brand new, clean-shaven look, will be feeling the positive effects of this prescribed burn for several years.
And Mother Nature - well, she’s satisfied for the moment.