The Houston Sierra Club has participated in many ecosystem restoration projects. These projects include planting saltmarsh grass, planting Longleaf Pine trees, cutting woody plants on prairies, planting freshwater wetland plants, and controlled burns. These ecosystem restoration actions are needed to restore native ecosystems in the Houston Area. Perhaps the one ecosystem restoration action needed most right now is to protect forest ecosystems is burning.
To have a successful ecosystem restoration project one of its goals must be to restore natural ecological processes so that they function as they did before modern human interference and degradation. Fire is one of these natural ecological processes which needs to function as it once did.
Fire on the landscape occurs either by wildfire (fire from lightning and accidental human actions) or by purposefully burning an area at the natural frequency and appropriate season. This is called controlled or prescribed burning. Many forests in our area used to burn regularly, before modern human interference and fire suppression occurred, during lightning season seasonally (probably May through July) and during drought periods.
Some examples of forests which regularly burned in our area include Longleaf Pine-Little Bluestem-Oak Forests, Shortleaf Pine-Oak-Hardwood Forests, and Loblolly Pine-Hardwood Forests. Even Bald Cypress-Water Tupelo Swamp Forests burned occasionally during very dry times. In addition, small prairie inclusions, like blackland prairies found within Sam Houston National Forest (SHNF), and other prairies, burned regularly. These fires often burned into forests in a finger-like way and created “edge” or ecotones (where two or more ecosystems meet) which provided more diversity for both forest and grassland ecosystems.
Fire in these regularly burned forest and other ecosystems opened up the landscape so that grasses, herbaceous vegetation (like wildflowers), and woody plants had more sunlight to grow. In addition, the burned vegetation created a rich ash, high in nutrients and minerals, which was available immediately for plant use.
Without regular fires and other natural disturbances, like floods and windstorms, forests grow dense and shade out many native grasses and wildflowers. This leads to forests that are less diverse and perhaps less able to respond and adjust to future natural disturbances and human-made climate change.
With increased human population and development, natural areas like SHNF, are surrounded and find it more difficult to use wildfire and control burns. The major problem with control burns, which are done under strict wind, temperature, humidity, and other conditions, are smoke and other air pollutants, which can affect road visibility and human health. A well-run wildfire and control burn program reduces, but never eliminates air pollution.
A significant effort must be made to educate the general public, neighbors, and pollution agencies like the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) about ecological and biological requirements of ecosystems that need the fire natural ecosystem process to remain healthy.
Without wildfire and control burns forest ecosystems will not function well and we will lose some of their natural beauty and diversity. Sierra Club members and the general public can help by becoming educated about the fire benefits, talking about those benefits to others, and telling TCEQ and EPA that you support the use of wildfires and control burning to create and maintain healthy forest ecosystems.
If you have questions or for more information contact: Brandt Mannchen, 281-570-7212 or brandtshnfbt@juno.com.