Management

The Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest provides habitat for thousands of species across 26 counties in North and Central Georgia, including 29 threatened or endangered wildlife and plant species, with many more considered sensitive and locally rare. Because fire shaped southern landscapes for thousands of years, today’s forests need fire to stay healthy. The burn seeks to mimic natural fire as much as possible, using different firing patterns to create a mosaic burn pattern that includes unburned areas as well. This creates a diversity of habitat conditions needed for many different types of plants and animals. Learn more from the National Deer Association: What is Forest Stand Improvement?

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In addition to ecological benefits, prescribed fire can benefit the community by reducing the risk of severe wildfires in the future and maintaining scenic vistas important for recreation and tourism. Much of the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest is within the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), where wildfire risk from hazardous fuels threatens communities and homes. Prescribed fire treatments can reduce this risk. Residents and communities can also help to reduce this risk by becoming Firewise to protect homes and neighborhoods.

Discover the science of prescribed fire and why it’s needed now more than ever.

To achieve the benefits from prescribed fire, fire specialists from the Forest Service and numerous partners apply prescribed fire to more than 35,000 acres across the National Forest. Burning typically occurs between February and May, with additional operations possible in late autumn.

The timing of the fire is dependent upon weather conditions and techniques that minimize smoke as much as possible. Even so, smoke may be visible and affect adjacent areas. Anyone may locate planned burn areas and follow prescribed fire operations by monitoring the Burn Tracker map, view Alerts on the website, or following the @ChattOconeeNF page on Facebook for #BurnAlerts. 

"Safety is our primary concern during prescribed fire operations," said Mike Davis, Fire Management Officer for the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest. He added, "Forest Service fire managers are highly trained in protecting nearby communities, themselves, and the land that is being restored."

Experienced fire specialists will closely monitor local weather conditions, such as wind and humidity, and adjust the schedule as needed to ensure the safety of both prescribed fire managers and local residents. Prior to beginning burn operations, crews construct and designate firebreaks to ensure the fire does not leave the burn area. 

Read more: Guidebook for Prescribed Burning in the Southern Region

Visit the website for the Georgia Prescribed Fire Council.

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Wildland fire has played an essential role in the health of the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest's oak and pine stands for thousands of years. Researchers studying fire-scarred trees have found that fires occurred periodically, often every 3-9 years, dating back to the mid-1600s, and soil charcoal records show that fire has been a part of these mountains for at least 10,000 years. After years of continuous exposure to fire, our landscape has become fire-adapted and needs fire to remain healthy.

Prescribed fire is a fire management tool that allows us to reintroduce the benefits of fire to the landscape in a safe and controlled way. Under the guidance of our Forest Plan Goals and Objectives for Fire Management, Forest land managers prescribe fire to Forest areas as a way to better wildlife habitat, reduce forest fuels (like brush, dry leaves, and shrubs), and better the general health of the Forest. When conditions are just right, fire managers carry out the prescribed fire treatments essential to improving wildlife habitat and maintaining a healthy forest. Every year, fire managers successfully treat around 35,000 acres on the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests through prescribed fire.

The Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests fire management program mission is to manage fuels at the landscape scale to restore and maintain fire-resilient landscapes that are compatible with their historical fire return interval, a core goal of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy.

Learn more: Prescribed Fire in Georgia: Frequently Asked Questions

As the leaves bud out across the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests, fire managers are working to complete thousands of acres of critical prescribed fire treatments. Using carefully planned and controlled prescribed fire during the spring growing season can provide better open habitat results.

“The best grasses and ‘bugging habitat’ needed for young wild turkey occur after prescribed fire is applied during the growing season,” said Jimmy Rickard, Ecologist for the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests. “These fires are important for maintaining and improving the overall population of wild turkeys on the national forest. The impact of the habitat degradation that would occur in the absence of these carefully controlled fire treatments far exceeds that of any individual nests damaged.”

Fires during growing season are also a naturally occurring part of a healthy habitat. Before western settlement, frequent low intensity fires would have burned across the forests of Georgia during the months from March to October- often during growing season. For several decades, fire managers have been using active forest management, including prescribed fire, to help maintain the open, grassy habitat essential to wild turkey and other species. Across the Oconee National Forest in middle Georgia, bobwhite quail and the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker can also be found in the same healthy woodland forest as wild turkey. 

“By returning fire to the forest, we are doing our part to ensure the healthiest forest ecosystem for the plant, animal, and human communities that depend on it,” added Rickard. “Fire is simply a natural part of the forest.”

Lynn Lewis-Weis with the National Wild Turkey Federation agrees. "I always tell folks who want more wildlife, no matter what it is, the key is habitat diversity," said Lewis-Weis. "You have to provide everything an animal needs (food, nesting habitat, escape cover, brood rearing habitat, etc.) all year-round, not just when you want to hunt them. A part of that model is using all the tools in the toolbox. Prescribed fire during both dormant and growing seasons is a must when managing lands in the Southeast, and when used wisely, can create the year-round habitat that wildlife, including turkeys, needs to flourish."

She added, "It may seem illogical, but if your favorite turkey hunting spot just got burned, consider yourself lucky! Hurry, go set up there now, even if it’s still smoking."

Kevin Lowrey with the Georgia DNR, who specializes in turkey populations and habitat, advises that the “Growing season burning helps accomplish habitat objectives that burning in the dormant season can’t. Most places that would be burned in the growing season represent marginal or poor turkey nesting and brood rearing habitat. It’s simply too thick. Burning creates conditions desired by many wildlife species including turkeys."

Lowrey concluded, "While a turkey nest may get destroyed during the burns, that is usually not the case. Generally, the positive changes created by the growing season burn outweigh any potential nest loss." He noted in one case a turkey hen re-nested four times as late is mid-July after egg loss to predators.

Learn more how wildlife habitat is improved by the use of prescribed fire in the following report by The Nature Conservancy in North Carolina, in cooperation with the Consortium of Appalachian Fire Managers & Scientists, The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, and the Fire Learning Network for the Southern Blue Ridge.

Read more from the Fire Learning Network:

• The Fire Manager’s Guide to Blue Ridge Ecozones book
• Considerations for Wildlife & Fire in the Southern Blue Ridge

Review the science:

• Quail, Turkey, and Deer: Fire Effects and Management Recommendations - Southern Fire Exchange, Joint Fire Science Program
• Wild Turkeys and Prescribed Fire – Part 1 – Southern Fire Exchange
• Wild Turkeys and Prescribed Fire – Part 2 – Southern Fire Exchange

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Printed in Fire Management Today, No.75-2, pp.45-48 (2017), Forest Service.

Protecting Critical Infrastructure

On a breezy March afternoon, the sounds of traffic rushing by on Interstate 75 travel easily up the base of a rocky mountain in north Georgia. On the narrow ridgetop, a group of wildland fire managers and the local fire chief look out into the surrounding national forest from a communications site covered in towers and antennae. But this time, the view is the forest they are not seeing rather than the forest they are. In fact, the closest continuous fuels (woody forest material) and fuel loading starts some 300 feet away from those critical towers.

“What a success” exclaims Dalton City Fire Chief, Bruce Satterfield. “Without this fuels treatment, a careless cigarette spark from the interstate could have raced up the mountain and destroyed the communications of nearly 600,000 people and countless emergency responders”.   

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The group agrees and continues to discuss other potential wildfire mitigation work needed in the area. And this conversation is one of many in a series of open conversations about wildfire risk in northwest Georgia. Starting in spring of 2013, US Forest Service (USFS), National Park Service (NPS), and local agencies agreed this site would be a critical value at risk in the event of a wildfire. They also agreed the site would be very difficult to protect due to the steep terrain, a single access point, lack of defensible space and heavy forest fuel loading. Unable to change the terrain or access concerns, USFS fire managers began to plan and discuss tools to increase defensible space and reduce fuel continuity on the national forest land. Top concerns included firefighter safety, influence on the wildland urban interface and cost effectiveness.

“By focusing on the arrangement and continuity of forest fuels, we were able to drop potential wildfire out of the tree tops and onto the ground” said Forest Fire Management Officer, Mike Davis. “This newly defensible space provides for much needed firefighter safety.”

Leveraging Partnerships

Through an existing partnership agreement, the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest was able to utilize a NPS Southeast Region Fire Management owned and operated compact tracked loader equipped with a specialized mastication head, known as the ‘Getter’. Working side by side with USFS hand crews, the ‘Getter’ shredded its way through more than 24 tons of woody material and over growth at the antennae site. Furthermore, this equipment allowed for increased firefighter safety through reducing exposure during site prep and other mechanical fuels treatments that have historically been accomplished by hand. With more than 40 antennas perched across the narrow ridge, hand work would have been prohibitively resource diverting as well. 

“The importance of this site crossed all governmental and non-governmental boundaries” said NPS Regional Fuels Specialist, Mike Ward. “We accomplished this project in a safe manner, a timely manner, and a cost effective manner solely through partnership.

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Resilient Communities

While there is still minor work remaining to complete the project, both USFS and NPS fire personnel are pleased with the cost-effectiveness of this wildfire risk mitigation effort. To-date, the project has cost approximately $10,000.00 while protecting an estimated 50 million dollars in critical infrastructure.  However the true economic cost would be exponential if communications were interrupted for major commercial users such as Norfolk Southern Railroad and Verizon Wireless. 

Additionally, this effort has facilitated conversations with non-federal partners including state emergency management agencies’ regarding an ‘all-lands approach’ that is in alignment with the National Cohesive Strategy.  In addition to housing the antennae of many commercial vendors, the site also contains the communications for state emergency management, local emergency medical services, fire departments, state highway patrol and the county sheriff. Dug Gap provides interoperability to multiple state and federal agencies in Georgia and Tennessee on a daily basis. By partnering to protect critical communication infrastructure, the NPS and USFS actively provided for firefighter safety and enhanced the full spectrum of responses to wildfire incidents across all agency and land ownership lines.

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