Refuge Notebook
Peninsula Clarion Article
Dated
04 February 2000
Swamp Fires - A Look at Fire Management in the South
by
Alicia Duzinski
Hundreds of gators were resting
along the banks of the Suwannee Canal, one of the few remaining open water holes
on the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, located in southeast Georgia where
I worked last summer. As I walked down to take water-level readings, the gators
slid and splashed into the water in a domino effect. The heat index was 115 degrees
and lightning cracked as enormous bolts of energy struck the earth, causing the
purple afternoon sky to glow a supernatural hue. At this point, the water levels
in the swamp were so low and the vegetation so dry that any lightning strike could
cause a potentially serious wildfire.
During the summer of 1999, southeast
Georgia and Florida experienced extreme drought conditions and volatile fire behavior.
Water-levels in the 396,000-acre watershed that is the Okefenokee National Wildlife
Refuge dropped an inch per day. In the summer months, violent lightening storms
rock the swamp with over 500 lightning strikes on any given day. The swamp is
made up of diverse habitats: from the dark cypress lined waterways to floating
islands covered with trees and shrubs, from open water prairies to mats of floating
peat that give the Okefenokee its Seminole name "land of trembling earth."
Flying over the Okefenokee NWR, it is striking how it resembles parts the
Kenai Peninsula, with its peat moss, waterlilies, lakes, islands, and pockets
of upland timber. The Okefenokee swamp has a certain mystique with its islands
of southern pine, cypress-lined waterways and plants with names that roll off
the tongue, like ti-ti, fetterbrush, sweet bay, loblolly, and pepperbush. This
lush green vegetation is deceiving because it can burn violently under conditions
that we would consider unburnable in Alaska.
Okefenokee NWR has a cooperative
agreement with the State of Georgia Forestry Commission for fire suppression duties,
similar to the Kenai NWR's agreement with Alaska State Forestry. Fire is such
a natural part of the culture in the South that people don't really get that worried
when they see smoke. All year long, the refuge conducts prescribed burns to return
the upland areas to the native longleaf pine-wiregrass habitat for the endangered
Red Cockaded Woodpecker. The timber companies bordering the swamp burn slash piles
after harvest, so it is not unusual to see smoke on any given day. However, large-scale
fires that threaten life and property are given full attention, and national resources
were called into fight the huge fires that occurred last summer.
Lightning
strikes started last summer's two large fires on the Okefenokee. The 14,000-acre
Hickory Island fire ignited in April and continued smoldering into June. We were
on alert for any threats to surrounding homes and timber company lands. The Friendly
Fire broke out on the Florida border in June and eventually crossed into Georgia
and the swamp. Extreme fire behavior caused almost 30,000 acres to burn over during
one afternoon, and the fire consumed 70,000 acres before it was contained. Thousands
of acres of slash pine belonging to Rayonier Inc., Toledo Manufacturing, Superior
Pine and International Paper companies were burned in the fire.
In 1994,
the Greater Okefenokee Association of Landowners (GOAL) was formed due to concerns
over the danger and expense of fighting wildland fires. The group consists of
80 local landowners who collectively represent over 2 million acres of land surrounding
the Okefenokee. The refuge works closely with GOAL members to maintain the swamp's
edge break, a 200-mile fuel break around the perimeter of the Okefenokee. This
fuel break acts to prevent fire from entering or leaving the swamp and makes it
safer and easier to fight fires in the remote areas around the swamp. The GOAL
members built and paid for helicopter dip sites every three miles around the swamp,
most of which are on private land.
Similarly on the Kenai Peninsula, neighborhood
groups are working with the Kenai NWR and state and local fire protection officials
through Project Impact to help prevent fire from threatening their homes and families.
Fire is critical to the Okefenokee swamp. Without fire, the natural process
of forest succession would cause peat buildup, allowing shrubs to grow. Eventually
a hardwood forest would take over, sucking up the precious water supply. Historically,
lightning has kept this process in check by generating large-scale fires that
keep the waterways open and remove the shrub buildup from the forest floor.
-------------------------
Alicia Duzinski is the Fire Program Technician at the Kenai National Wildlife
Refuge. She spent the summer working as a wildland firefighter on the Okefenokee
National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Georgia. If you would like to learn more
about fire management or other refuge programs, stop by the refuge headquarters
on Ski Hill Road in Soldotna, call us at 262-7021, or check out our website at
www.r7.fws.gov.
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