Such A Turkey

We've been having nearly daily afternoon thunderstorms. While we appreciate the rain, the lightning is troublesome. Frequent lightning strikes lead to a greater probability of wildfire so we have to stay on our toes and keep a constant vigil. Wildfire is not necessarily a bad thing - it is a natural and often beneficial event in the swamp -- but things are still really dry out there. A wildfire now has the potential to get very hot and hard to contain so we do daily patrols to scout for signs of fire.

The upside of these patrols is the increased opportunity to make regular observations of wildlife. Even wild animals become creatures of habit - at least while the food supply is abundant in the same place. I can pretty much count on seeing this particular turkey working the roadside in the afternoon. I still can't get close enough to get a decent photograph, but it never fails to make me smile when I see this turkey trotting down the road - long legs in constant motion.

Incident Info

For information on wildfires visit the inciweb.org website.

You can see pictures and maps at this site and find out all sorts of information about the fires that are burning in the US.

Saturday Morning

I shared the trail with a very pretty ratsnake. He was unusual in that he retained a good bit of his juvenile markings despite his large size.

Skinkus interruptus...accidentally disturbed a pair of skinks that may have been getting ready to get to know each other a little better. This is the female; the red-headed male scampered off when I got too close.

Treebeard is showing you this male turtle's long front claws. Male sliders use their impressive nails to stroke the face of females they hope to, uh, persuade...

Damsel in distress, but the robber fly is happy.

Lichen-covered bump on a limb cuddles a couple of pea-sized hummingbird eggs.
Mom is off feeding.

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Fire update:

Over 1500 acres now
Creeping closer
Over 200 people working the fire
Lots of smoke

On Edge

 

I stood at the boundary line and watched the smoke. The fire is still a mile or so away from our boundary and thus far the winds have been in our favor. There are no homes nearby, just swamp. About 1000 acres have burned -- not necessarily a bad thing. The swamp needs fire from time to time. But still, it's hard to think of the animals out there losing their homes (at least temporarily), if not their lives. Plus, the smoke is killer.

Please keep the fire crews in mind. There are about 100 people working this incident. To our south another fire continues to burn. Over 300 people are working that one. It's hot, dirty, dangerous work. If you have some to spare, send positive energy this way...

A couple of other smoke views from a distance.

 

 

Soupy Saturday

 

Time for a little whining -- it's hot, it's humid, and it's smoky out there. We're stuck in a weather pattern that's less than pleasant. In addition, there is a huge wildfire to our south that is sending smoke up our way. And speaking of that fire, there's a good chance I may be sent south sometime soon to help work it...

Okay, I'm done. No more whining. Hope you have a great weekend!

Slow Smolder

The fire continues to burn, but it is now a smoldering ground fire. Ah, the joys of peat soils...

Forestry anticipates the fire will burn for some time to come. We continue to keep our fingers crossed that a spark doesn't find its way onto the park.

Spring fire season is just around the corner. Its gonna be a tense one, I'm afraid.

Smoke Out

Monday I stopped on my way into work to take this picture. The smoke is from a fire about nine miles away -- the distance I was from my workplace. When I got back in the truck and continued on my way, I entered the smoke bank about five miles down the road. Have you ever been in smoke from a peat fire? It's a rough go...acrid, stinging smoke that irritates the eyes and burns the throat.

Above is a shot of the sky that greeted me at work. I went out to check our boundaries to see if any of the fire had managed to cross the highway and enter the park. Luckily for us, it hadn't jumped the road.

As the day progressed, the wind shifted and blew the smoke to our east. This shot was taken from our bridge as I was closing up.

The fire started on Sunday, fanned by high winds. As of today, it has burned a total of 1700 acres. The highway, a major artery between VA and NC was closed today after a five-car wreck early this morning. Apparently a driver was blinded by the smoke and stopped in the road. Not a good thing... The smoke shifted north today and made the road too dangerous for traffic.

The weatherman says we should get rain tonight and most of tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for us. Peat fires are notoriously hard to put out -- we need a lot of rain.

Where There's Smoke

I travelled to another park yesterday to assist in a prescribed burn. Things went well all day - a good start to our burn season.

Wednesday Was a Busy Day

Carrying the torch.


Wednesday was a good day for a burn. The wind was right, the humidity was right, and smoke dispersal was good. Excellent conditions are a must for these particular burn units as they have proved tricky in the past. The area is a large field surrounded on three sides by woodland and on the fourth by the highway. It tends to burn hot and fast and we have to be on our toes the whole time. The burn boss has divided the area into six separate units. We burned three of the units.

The man in the picture above is using a drip torch to draw a line of fire across the field. It is the job of the rest of the crew to make sure the fire stays where it is supposed to. You can see where we have put out the flames along the edge. It is hot work and you have to be on constant guard for spot fires that can be ignited outside the assigned unit by flying sparks.

Not as scary as it looks...


This shot looks like a raging fire heading toward a mature woodland...it isn't though. There is a fireline between the small trees and the mature woods behind them. The trees in the foreground are young loblolly pines, one of the first trees to invade a field during succession. Part of the goal of this particular burn is to maintain this field in a certain stage of succession -- one without loblolly pines. Since the pines aren't a fire tolerant species they will die off after a few years of successive burns.

A nice finish to a long day.


When we left the burn unit on Wednesday evening we were treated to a beautiful moon just above the horizon. All the fires were out, the spring peepers and chorus frogs were already back to singing in the semi-permanent wet spots in the fields we had just burned off. Overhead we saw the silhouette of a woodcock performing its distinctive display flight. The owls were sure to have good hunting once we left -- these fields are home to a large number of cotton rats. Life, in all its forms is a wonder...take the time to appreciate it.

Our Second Ecological Burn

Fire behaving nicely


Our second burn of 2005 went very well yesterday. A lot of planning goes into these burns -- weather, winds (upper and lower level), fuel type and load, topography, and a host of other things have to be considered before a burn can take place. Our goal is to have a contained, controlled burn that we more or less shepherd -- not a raging, out of control wildfire that we have to fight.

Why mop-up can take a while


When the main fire has burned itself out, we move in to do mop-up. Mop-up involves making sure that anything that is still burning is well within the blackened area and presents no risk of spreading the fire outside of the designated burn unit. This year mopping up is a little more time consuming thanks to the tremendous number of trees Hurricane Isabel dropped back in 2003. It is a little tricky manuvering over and under fallen trees carrying a backpack pumper with 5 gallons of water in it and a fire rake. I would hate to have to be fighting a fire under these conditions -- all those western wildland firefighters have my utmost respect. We can move slowly and work at a less than break-neck pace, they can't.

Don't worry - the cottontail escaped unharmed


This eastern cottontail got rousted out before the flames reached its brushpile. We shooed it over the fireline and into a safe zone. Since our fires cover small areas and burn through them fairly quickly, there is relatively little major impact to most of the woodland residents. Most of the people I work with will go out of their way to move even the smallest critters out of harm's way whenever possible.

A Good, Clean Burn

Fire sweeps the longleaf pines.

Weather was finally on our side and we got in our first prescribed burn of 2005. The fire behaved, the wind behaved, and smoke dispersal was good. Can't ask for anything more!

A good day on the fire line. 

Little Things

Yesterday was a busy day. We worked on clearing fire lines that dear Hurricane Isabel dropped trees on back in 2003. She did a thorough job of it -- we still have a lot of work to do before any prescribed burns can take place. The area we worked on yesterday is a stand of mature loblolly pines (not a plantation-type stand -- an actual, natural woodland). One day in the not too distant future perhaps a couple of red-cockaded woodpeckers might find it to their liking and move in. We can always hope.

Anyway, it was nice out and temps were in the forties. A nice change from the weather we have been having. I took my camera along (as always) and took a few pictures when I could. The two pictures below show some of the things that caught my eye. I love the little things...