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High-elevation red oak forests blanket the hills in North Carolina's National Forests
© Gary Kaufmann / USDA FS |
The Southern Blue Ridge Fire Learning Network engages multiple federal, state and private land management agencies in a collaborative effort to enhance the capacity to implement ecological fire management in the Southern Blue Ridge ecoregion. The project area cover 2.7 million acres of land managed by partners in four states — Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
The landscape is characterized by mountainous and rolling terrain ranging from 700 to 6,000 feet in elevation. Hardwood and mixed pine-hardwood forest, pine-oak-heath shrublands and woodlands, and small-patch grasslands are found scattered across this landscape, resulting in high levels of species diversity and endemism. The partnership has identified shortleaf pine-oak, pine-oak-heath, dry-mesic oak-hickory and high-elevation red oak forests as target communities for restoring fire regimes.
Project Vision
This Network's vision is to restore and maintain these fire-adapted ecosystems on lands within the Southern Blue Ridge landscape. To do this, it is working to increase the capacity for, and reduce the obstacles to, conducting prescribed burning.
Background
A fire history study begun in 2007 by Dr. Henri Grissino-Mayer and Lisa LaForest has found that the Great Smoky Mountains historically had a fire return interval of one to twelve years. Supression efforts since the 1920s, however, have lead to a lack of recruitment of oaks and pines, the establishment of shrubby undergrowth and the encroachment of mesic, less fire-tolerant species such as red maple and white pine.
The lack of regeneration of oak forests is problematic for both wildlife species such as black bear, deer and turkey that depend on mast, and for foresters who depend on the timber product. Native pests such as the southern pine beetle have had severe outbreaks in overgrown forests, leading to the decline of pine trees and increased fuel loads. Invasive species such as princess tree, tree of heaven and Chinese silver grass are invading the forests and displacing native species; there is concern that fire disturbance could accelerate the colonization by some of these species.
Chestnut historically played a significant role as a dominant or co-dominant canopy tree and mast species in the region. Currest forest types are in transition, responding to past and current fire regimes and pathogen impacts as well as to climate change. All of these need to be taken into account when working to restore fire-adapted ecosystems, as will the fact that the resulting ecosystems will probably differ from historic ecosystems.
While much of the Blue Ridge landscape is in public ownership, little prescribed burning has taken place for many years. Development limits burning because of smoke management issues and burn windows are often short and unpredictable. Mountain laurel and rhododendron have created a dense understory that is very flammable during droughts, increasing the risk of wildfire to the growing number of homes. The public is no longer accustomed to fire as a disturbance in the Appalachians, and many people are skeptical about the role should play in the pine and hardwood forests. Finally, returning fire to the landscape has not always produced the desired result of regenerating oak and pines in fire-suppressed forests. The Southern Blue Ridge FLN provides a forum for land managers, planners and researchers to share both success stories and lessons learned. This will accelerate learning about how and where to effectively restore fire as a disturbance that will increase and maintain ecosystem health, and how to do so with the support of the public.
Leaders: Margit Bucher and Beth Buchanan
Workshop 4 / postponed
The workshop originally scheduled for 30 September 2008 - 2 October 2008 has been postponed; it will be held in May 2009.
Workshop 3 / Fletcher, NC /
17-19 June 2008
The objectives of this workshop were to:
(1) peer review the plans of three participating sites;
(2) get updates from the national, Appalachian and South Central FLNs, and share research reports on high elevation red oak forests, oak savannas and Table Mountain pine / southern pine beetle dynamics;
(3) compare the effects of fire and a mechanical fire surrogate (field trip); and
(4) discuss fire needs, obstacles to implementation (fire needs, fuel loads, WUI, air quality, pathogens, invasives) and refine solutions developed by sites.
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