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Prescribed Burning

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FunkyBunker

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3 mins ago, DaD0ughB0y said:

The whole thread is talking about places being burned!

 

If I/we start talking about fish actually being caught, then yeah, I agree.

 

Right now, all we're talking about is that fishing HASN'T started yet in Great Bay, that the water is still too cold, and by the way, who fishes the area, so that I know who to send PMs to when it does start.

Edited by JoeyZac
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1 min ago, JoeyZac said:

 

If I/we start talking about fish actually being caught, then yeah, I agree.

 

Right now, all we're talking about is that fishing HASN'T started yet in Great Bay, that the water is still too cold, and by the way, who fishes the area, so that I know who to send PMs to when it does start.

You're in the prescribed burning thread.  It's a joke.  The thread is literally about the spots that are on fire and burning around the state.

 

 

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Coming west this afternoon over the Tunney-Mathis bridge I could see the smoke off in the distance (Manchester is my guess). Sure enough as soon as I get on 37 I see the over the roadway sign says : Prescribed burning. Smoke may be a hazard. But it's an east breeze, so no smell or smoke here in Pine Beach.

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On 3/19/2019 at 4:21 PM, tidewaterfly said:

It's done here in SC near where I live. They call it controlled burns, but I never see anyone actually controlling anything, except they may put out signs on the roadways that say "Smoke Ahead" or "Dense Smoke". There's a lot of pine forests here, grown for the timber, and I guess the burning works. It burns off the under growth, and doesn't seem to be harming the tree's, so there's less chance of big forest fires. I'm sure it's a cost thing too, as going in with machinery to cut the undergrowth would cost more. They use machinery to clear areas around many of the forests, I guess as fire breaks. Timber is big business down here & they seem to know what they're doing. 

I worked as a technician on a prescribed burn in college once. There is a lot that goes into a burn. It has to be the right temperature, the right humidity, the right air pressure, with the right winds, etc. Fire breaks have to be dug and disc'ed, and the surrounding area sprayed with water. And the forest service is constantly patrolling the burn area in their extremely badass trucks.

 

The fires also do so much more than prevent uncontrollable fires. The burning returns nutrients to the soil, kills parasites, and controls carbon sequestration in the plant matter. There are also some trees that require fire to reproduce. They are mostly pine trees, and their cones are held closed by a resin that requires a particular temperature to be reached to open and distribute the seeds. This is called serotiny. Very, very interesting stuff.

 

The logging industry and human encroachment have really screwed up the world's forests. Reintroducing fires does help a lot.

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11 hours ago, Scallywag said:

Used to live in Bayville and went to Central Regional HS. Double trouble bordered our school property. Same as others mentioned, prescribed burns every year. It's a necessity to prevent massive wildfires. There was a wildfire when I was in middle School there that shut down the school for a few days. 

 

I also read that the Pine Barrens would be the oak barrens if it wasn't for the natural occurrence of fires. The fires reduce the natural acidity of the soil, which would be too acidic for the pines. 

The barrens are classified as a pine-oak forest. That is, they are primarily occupied by different species of pine trees, with various oak species occupying the next level of dominance. The pines are very well adapted to the frequent fires that used to come through the area. The oaks are not as well adapted, and cannot survive frequent, intense fires. A lot of this has to do with the thick, armor-like bark the pines have, while the bark on oak trees is quite a bit thinner.

 

In recent years, the oaks have been taking over more and more. This is because we have severely limited the amount of fires that go through the barrens. They are out competing a lot of the pines, but we have found that these things go in cycles. The pines will thrive for a while, then the oaks will take over, then the oaks will all burn and the cycle starts over again. The Pine Barrens are a hot mess (pardon the pun) right now due to the lack of burning. It is a tinderbox waiting for a spark to set it off, with decades of fuel on the ground in some places.

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Was flying from the Caymans to JFK yesterday afternoon..and came in low parallel to LBI...you could see all the prescribed burns in the Barrens.  I disagree strongly regarding logging however...logging is the ONLY thing really keeping modern forests healthy...without it we would have bunch of mature ecological deserts like the public areas in the Adirondacks.  We do a lot of prescribed burns and continual timber thinning on our quail property in S Jersey an it is spectacular.   I own a hardwood tree farm in the catskills as well, and biological diversity in areas logged versus not cant even be compared 

No people were ever yet benefited by riches if their prosperity corrupted their virtue....
-Theodore Roosevelt
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25 mins ago, buckmaster said:

Was flying from the Caymans to JFK yesterday afternoon..and came in low parallel to LBI...you could see all the prescribed burns in the Barrens.  I disagree strongly regarding logging however...logging is the ONLY thing really keeping modern forests healthy...without it we would have bunch of mature ecological deserts like the public areas in the Adirondacks.  We do a lot of prescribed burns and continual timber thinning on our quail property in S Jersey an it is spectacular.   I own a hardwood tree farm in the catskills as well, and biological diversity in areas logged versus not cant even be compared 

What you are referencing is something called a disturbance regime. Forests naturally experience disturbances on all levels; fires, windblown trees, mudslides, you name it. All of these are both destructive and essential for biodiversity and overall forest health. The logging business royally screwed all of that up by halting these disturbances and throwing a wrench into the cogs that turn the forests' natural cycles.

 

The situations you are talking about are using logging as a synthetic substitute for natural disturbances. Yes, they are still disturbances, but they are neither as efficient as natural ones or sustainable in the long term. The thinning you are doing is repairing some level of the damage caused by the interruptions of the logging industry. When logging was halted, we wound up with unbalanced and, in some instances, overpopulated forests, like the barrens. The trees in the barrens are overcrowded, and the area should look more like what we recognize as a savannah, with a lot more open land between the pines and oaks.

 

Letting a few good burns through the whole thing would work wonders for the ecology of the area, but that is never going to happen.

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Buck and ATH, you both make really good points. Ben here 55 years now, and walked/drove/canoed thru a whole lot of the pine barrens. I've seen some relatively small areas that were so fuel overgrown, often just adjacent to occupied ares, that you just know that but for one cigarette butt...

I fought that last fire we had here that jumped the parkway with my local company. 

We stopped it, and only lost the one structure that had never once had a tree or bush pruned. Houses on both sides survived with minimal damage. I remember all of the wildfires that burned around here. 

Wildfire memories , lol... One night back in the 80's coming home from a race up  Rt.70 from down south we got to Lebanon state park and began hitting hundreds of Gypsy Moths. All over the windshield, fluid and wipers could barely keep up. Never saw or smelled smoke, but when we got home find out there was a fire in Lacey. Evacuated a mess of folks, and chased them moths away to be killed by us and all the other trucks traveling that road :th: 

 

Another one that I just remembered was heading home from Brigantine, up the parkway to the west, I could see the glow of a fire up towards the Mullica River. Rolling up towards the bridge I saw that the marsh east of the parkway was all afire and the wind was honkin' from the west. Hear sirens and see two state cops and a firetruck coming up back behind me, at full speed. I mashed the pedal down and drove thru the smoke and embers. But I was the last one. Them troopers closed the GSP behind me. Next day I saw that it jumped the sb side, but only a little of the nb side. 

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I understand the process of forest disturbance...like I have said I have either helped manage or manage my own healthy forests with biologists for 20 plus years, including active participation in prescribed burns for 20 years in Jersey.  Allowing the state to graft cuttings from my 100 yr old plus heirloom apple trees in NY that are disease resistant to other areas, and bringing endangered heirloom grafts to my disease resistant trees on my dime.

To say logging is the cause of the problem, or a negative disturbance to the cycle anywhere I can think of in North America is absurd...it is a synthetic disturbance sure, and frankly the only remaining disturbance available.  Fragmented habitat due to development, fire suppression, and lack of successional habitat due to ending logging is the problem.  Different types of forests in different latitudes require different types of fire...some benefit from low frequent low intensity fires, some high intensity fires..others become deserts for 40-50 years after one.  Most of the single age timber forests we have, even in NJ, are becoming ecological deserts and you can thank misguided environmental groups like the sierra club for that.   They re-introduced radio collared lynx into the public areas of the Adirondacks with no logging and they died of starvation within months, since nothing below them on the food chain could survive in an single age mature forest.  Logging also creates a disturbance without damaging legacy bacteria and fungus that may not survive a high intensity fire, in fact as part of my healthy forest plan I cut and let certain trees lay that provide continued food for fungus and bacteria, insects,  for a total healthy ecosystem.   

We have had some very large fires btw burn uncontrolled, 50,000 acre plus fires...including the one that started in Warren Grove from the air to ground range. Have you looked at that area over the next 10 years...it is the inverse of what you describe in density and specie balance. 

Not to mention young forests soak up carbon dioxide like a sponge....logging is the best thing you can do for global warming in the NH...in the SH and equatorial rainforests it is essentially the opposite.  Sadly 3rd world nations are logging and clearing for cattle in the most damaging places, and in the NH green groups are stopping logging where it needs to happen. 

No people were ever yet benefited by riches if their prosperity corrupted their virtue....
-Theodore Roosevelt
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