Prescribed Fire Week, Burn Team Mark Start of Season

Temperatures are dropping but burn season is heating up across the state as a prime time for controlled burning kicks in. And with Prescribed Fire Awareness Week also approaching, the newest recruits to a mobile burn team are ready to go.

This year’s burn crew represents agencies and organizations including The Nature Conservancy, the Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

“We just had one of the best fire training sessions ever down at General Coffee,” DNR wildlife biologist Shan Cammack said of recent training at the state park near Douglas.

Sessions involved Student Conservation Association (SCA) members and volunteers from the Conservancy and the Plant Conservation Alliance (GPCA).

“Our SCA crew looks to be amazing and the rest of the class was filled with super-bright GPCA and Conservancy volunteers,” said Cammack, coordinator of the prescribed fire crew for the DNR Wildlife Resources Division’s Nongame Conservation Section.

Prescribed Fire Awareness Week runs from Feb. 1-7, recognizing land managers who protect and maintain the state’s forest resources, and helping those managers and state and federal officials inform state lawmakers and the public about using controlled burns to reduce the risk of wildfires.

Prescribed fire is a safe, natural process that helps insure healthy ecosystems. The practice is considered essential to managing fire-dependant wildlife such as quail, wild turkeys, songbirds and the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. Controlled burning also is the only known method for perpetuating the longleaf/wiregrass ecosystem, Georgia’s most diverse type of forestland.

Visit the Georgia Prescribed Fire Council Web site at www.garxfire.com to learn more. The council works with the Georgia Forestry Commission and others to promote the exchange of information, techniques and experience regarding prescribed burning.

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