Controlled Burns Aid New England Forests

John Roach
for National Geographic News

January 27, 2005

For at least 5,000 years before Europeans arrived in North America,
Native Americans periodically set vast swaths of New England on fire.
Settlers brought the practice to a halt by the mid-18th century. But
today conservationists are again burning the forest to restore the
ecosystem and dampen the fire risk to some towns.

Tim Simmons is a restoration ecologist with the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program in Westborough. Speaking of the early Native Americans, Simmons said fire "was sort of a Leatherman [or multi-tool] of their time. They used it for everything."

Burning thinned forests, enabling Native Americans to see game, to grow blueberries, and to have elbow room when setting up camps. Fires also served to spur new plant growth and to control insect pests, Simmons said.

Since the landscape burned with such periodic frequency, many of the plants and animals became fire-adapted, according to Simmons, who noted that such species now depend on periodic fires for their survival.

After more than two centuries of fire suppression, some species are headed towards extinction.

To save the plants and animals, Simmons and his colleagues are engaged in a long-term program of prescribed burns, each year intentionally setting about 1,000 acres (400 hectares) on fire.

"We started very small, and we're still going very small," he said. "One thousand acres a year is a big year for us, but it's enough to sustain populations of rare plants and animals."

Of special interest to Simmons and his colleagues is returning fire to New England's pine barrens and sand plain grasslands. These flat lands of porous sand and gravel formed at the ends of ancient glaciers. Since water seeps quickly through the soils, only certain plants are able to take root there. And since European settlers built their cities on most of the plains, only a few remain.

Kennebunk Plains

Parker Schuerman is the southern Maine preserves manager for the Nature Conservancy in Moody, Maine. He collaborates with Simmons on the prescribed burn program at the Kennebunk Plains and Wells Barren, which are home to a host of endangered fire-adapted plants and animals.

The landscapes, which are divided by a drainage system, comprise less than a total of 1,000 acres (400 hectares) of droughty and acidic soil dominated by plants that are either drought-tolerant or fire-dependent, Schuerman said.

"The grasslands themselves are [human influenced] natural communities, resulting from past land use," he noted. Archaeological evidence indicates the lands were periodically burned starting at least 5,000 years ago.

The endangered plants and animals found on the sand plains include Maine's only viable population of northern blazing star, a drought tolerant plant, and a robust population of the grasshopper sparrow, which is endangered in the state. Several other grasslands birds, butterflies, and insects, as well as a snake and turtle species, are also found on the sand plains.

Schuerman said periodic burning of the grasslands provides a pulse of nutrients to the drought- and fire-adapted plants, allowing them to "grow with more gusto."

"That gusto is turned into brighter flowers, more and better seeds. This means that the fire also gives the animals a boost in energy. For the seeds have more nutrients, giving the small mammals and birds a bonus," he said.

If the grasslands are not periodically burned, Schuerman said, several of the animals, particularly grasslands birds, would begin to disappear. The grasslands would be replaced by thicker bushes and trees. Left unburned, the thicker bushes and trees also serve as an explosive fire hazard.

Saving Towns

According to Simmons, a second component to the prescribed burn program in New England is to protect communities from wildfires. Many towns abut the region's ancient fire-adapted ecosystems, which are loaded with fuels thanks to more than two centuries of fire suppression. A summer drought, a little wind, and a match could be catastrophic.

"The general population is just not aware how at risk some of these towns are," Simmons said.

The restoration ecologist spends much of his time traveling to town meetings to explain the reasons for the prescribed burn program. In addition to ecological restoration, his goal, he tells them, is to avoid a repeat of the infamous fire of 1947, which burned thousands of acres and homes in southern Maine.

He tells his audiences they need to accept the fact that fire is part of the landscape and to begin the process of re-introducing it to the landscape in a safe manner. But it's a hard sell, Simmons concedes.

"People are not separating ecology from the public safety aspect," he said. "They say it's fine to protect the habitat for various birds. People can generally get their arms around that. But the danger of [wildfire] never hits until you lose a town or village. Then people wake up."

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