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Abstract - Many ecosystems depend on wildland fire to stay healthy. Fire helps shape habitat by opening the forest floor to more sunlight, recycling nutrients, reducing built-up organic matter, and exposing soil that supports new plant growth. Because of these benefits, land managers use prescribed fire to help maintain fire-adapted ecosystems. However, fire does not always behave the same way, and its effects can vary depending on weather, fuel conditions, terrain, and the time of year.

Prescribed fire has not been widely used or closely studied in the Northeast. This study focused on quantitatively measuring fire intensity of burns in the Albany Pine Bush Preserve. Since 1991, the Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission has used prescribed burns to manage habitat, and since 2022 staff have collected detailed severity data pre and post burn to better understand fire effects.

The study found that fire severity can vary greatly, not only between different burn units but even between plots within the same burn, suggesting that fire severity can change across small spatial scales.
 
Current research suggests that prescribed burns every three to twenty years help maintain healthy pitch pine–scrub oak barrens. This research will further our understanding of how differing fire severities interact with burn intervals and season to achieve restoration and/or maintenance management outcomes. Finally, continuing to collect this data will allow us to assess the impact of repeated burning on fire severity, and modify management actions.

Suitable for tweens, teens and adults.

This lecture is being offered in a hybrid format.

IN PERSON: If you would like to attend in person, please reserve your tickets below.

VIRTUAL: If you would like to watch it online, please click here to get a link.