Myrtle Beach Wildfire Demonstrates the Value of Prescribed Burning
(Letter to the Editor, Aiken Standard, April 2009)
W. Bennett Tucker
Last week, if you had asked residents of Horry County, South Carolina, if they thought they would ever lose their home to a wildfire, they might have been fairly doubtful, or they might have denied such a disaster would ever occur. If you were to ask one of these same residents today, they probably would answer very differently. Many have lost their homes in the Highway 31 wildfire in Myrtle Beach in the last several days. From news reports, we learn that some Myrtle Beach residents barely had time to get dressed and get out of their homes before their homes were consumed by the inferno.
Before European settlement of the pine forests that cover what is now the southeastern United States, natural wildfires resulted from lightning strikes associated with light rainfall. Once the fuels of the forest understory dried out, the fires took off and burned until meeting a stream, river, swamp or other type of fire barrier. Some fires burned thousands and thousands of acres. Through these fires, nature maintained itself by reducing the fuel load because of the frequency in which these fires would occur, which at times could be annually or biannually. The results of the naturally occurring fires kept the chance of a destructive wildfire to a minimum. The upland pine forests of the southeast are fire dependent ecosystems, similar to rainforests being dependent on rain.
The Smokey Bear campaign has been prevalent for many decades and many people have grown up learning to prevent forest fires by being careful with campfires and debris burning, and that “Only you can prevent forest fires.” An ally of Smokey Bear is prescribed fire, often referred to as prescribed burning or controlled burning.
Prescribed fire is conducted by certified prescribed fire managers who conduct burns in a controlled setting to take advantage of proper smoke dispersal conditions and to achieve the desired result. Forest managers of private, state, and federal parks and forests across the nation conduct prescribed burns to minimize the risk of wildfire hazards and to achieve the desired ecological management benefits. Three main goals or reasons for conducting prescribed fires are hazard reduction to reduce the chance of wildfire, hardwood control to reduce competing species, and habitat management. Wildlife species of our upland pine forest ecosystems are dependent on fire maintained areas because fire improves their habitat and food supply. Prescribed fires ultimately mimic nature’s way of maintaining the forest ecosystem in a safe, controlled manner to aid in controlling fires that may occur accidentally.
The wildfire in Horry County is occurring in what is referred to as a Wildland Urban Interface. WUIs are becoming more and more prevalent across the state and nation with development of neighborhoods that are adjacent to or in forestlands. This makes land management and prescribed burning vital to the protection of people’s homes, lives and well being.
As a wildland firefighter, structural firefighter and South Carolina Certified Prescribed Fire Manager, I know how important it is to educate people across our city and state on the importance of prescribed burning. In light of the wildfire that our fellow South Carolinians have experienced in Myrtle Beach, it’s important to consider how easily wildfire can occur and the value of being proactive in forest management. It’s never a question of “if” a forest will burn; it’s a question of “when” a forest will burn. For this reason, land managers, foresters, and prescribed fire managers must be active stewards of forests to minimize the risk of destructive wildfire.
Since the late 1980s, the careful practice of prescribed burning has been an important part of the Hitchcock Woods Foundation’s stewardship of the Woods. This program is helping to restore this forest to the native conditions of a longleaf pine and wiregrass ecosystem while also reducing fuel loads to reduce the risk of wildfires.