Fire will bring life back to forest
Published: Sunday, March 22, 2009 at 6:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, March 22, 2009 at 9:32 a.m.
Large spans of charred black earth punctuated with scorched tree trunks eerily blanket more than 10,000 acres of the Juniper Prairie Wilderness where a wildfire started by careless campers has burned through the Ocala National Forest since March 10.
The landscape that looks like an ecological calamity is not truly one at all, U.S. Forest Service officials say.
"It's kind of a mixed bag a little bit," said Rick Lint, U.S. Forest Service district ranger for the Ocala forest. "It's not necessarily great. It's not necessarily bad. Fire, of course, has a role in the forest. Ecologically, it drives the forest. It has been there for thousands, and thousands and thousands of years. Fire has always been there."
Of course, Lint would have preferred if the fire had been a "prescribed burn," one that is planned by the Forest Service. It uses fire to manage the forest by mimicking natural blazes that create new growth and habitat and food for endangered species like the scrub jay. Those fires are set about every seven years or so.
But when this wildfire erupted, Lint and his staff looked for ways to maximize the good that fire does for the ecology.
"Can we capture benefits from this without putting our people and the public at risk?" Lint said, explaining the firefighting strategy.
The fire started and continues to burn in the Juniper Prairie, a federally designated wilderness area and part of a preservation system established by the Wilderness Act of 1964. It was 85 percent contained as of Friday. No mechanized equipment may be brought on wilderness land in order to keep it as undisturbed and natural as possible.
"It turned out well," Lint said Thursday about the strategy. "Last Tuesday, that was an unknown. Had the weather been different - winds from a different direction - we could have had the fire not be maintained within the boundary we chose."
Firefighters kept the fire burning in the wilderness area and away from campgrounds and historic structures.
The Forest Service set this wilderness afire in August 2006. Like this year, there was little rain and the fire spread. In addition, there were lightning strikes. So, it wound up being declared a wildfire, and 11,700 acres burned. Eventually, the rains came.
"They burned everything that burned this time plus from Juniper Creek to Mormon Branch," Lint said.
The 2006 fire was set in order to burn back some of the older, tall foliage so new greenery could grow.
Florida scrub jays like to live in low foliage that is about five years old. And they like to eat the acorns that come from some of those new plants. Another planned fire probably would not have been set for another eight to 10 years.
Because the current fire came so close on the heels of the 2006 fire, the Forest Service will be watching the impact on the habitat and species, particularly the endangered scrub jay, Lint said.
"The clock has been set back," he said about the current fire's effect on the jay and the overall ecology. "Was there enough that didn't burn that can provide a place for them until the other grows back?"
Lint said it "stands to reason" that other insects and animals perished in the fire. But he said many animals head for the creek and go beyond the fire. There also were pockets that did not burn that can provide refuge.
The fire burned slightly more than 10,000 acres, but the forest encompasses about 384,000 acres. He said that within a few months the burned areas will turn green, especially once there is sufficient rainfall.
But some Florida black bear cubs likely died in the fire.
"The average birth day is Jan. 27," said Walter McCown, a black bear research biologist for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "A 7-week-old cub can stand on its own feet and move a little bit, but it's not very mobile."
McCown said the bears den in thick palmetto, which is very flammable.
But area residents probably will not see bears in their backyards because of the fire, he said.
"It's not large enough for them to abandon the forest," McCown said about the blaze.
He also said bears generally do not eat much at this time of the year because the food supply is low.
As a result, they also do not move around much. But they will move to adapt to the landscape and shift to somewhere that has food resources. In the spring, bears will eat palmetto shoots, beetle larvae, bees, ants and wasps.
Bears are not the only critters that will have to adapt.
"This is not the normal lightning season in Florida," Forest Service wildlife biologist Carrie Sekerak said.
"Naturally, fires would be starting in May and June followed by the rainy season."
Animals tend to adapt to the natural fire cycle so it is more difficult for them if a fire occurs this time of year.
This is the courting and mating season, Sekerak said. But there still will be huge benefits.
"Fire provides nutrient recycling in Florida's poor soils," Sekerak said. "It's going to be a trade off. It's yin and yang. It's balance. There's going to be some disadvantages and advantages."
The results are mixed for scrub jays. They lost some of the shrubs in which they nest, but they have gained some foraging opportunities.
It has been good for the turkeys and swallow-tailed kites, Sekerak said.
"They are actively working the fire right now. 'Look at all those bugs,' " she said. "The turkeys will go in there while it's smoking hot."
But there is enough land to create resiliency.
Sekerak said prairie ponds offer refuge to small animals.
"The prairie is the FEMA housing, the temporary dwelling," she said.
Animals know the forest like humans know their homes and, like people, can find their way in the dark, Sekerak said.
Mice and snakes can live in the prairie ponds for months until the vegetation rebounds. And reptiles can go for months without food, so gopher tortoises can wait.
Sekerak said no eagle nests were lost to the fire. Two nests failed this year, but she thinks that was because of the drought.
She said there may be some territorial disputes among the scrub jays, as the homeless birds push into areas that already are occupied. What may happen is that they will not nest for a few years until the shrubbery grows back. But other animals will perish.
"Some animals will get trapped," Sekerak said about the fires. "It's the young. It's the ones in the nest."
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