Abstract:

Prolonged drought and historic ditching in the southeastern USA have resulted in wetlands being unusually dry. Fire officials are often concerned that fires in wetlands may lead to extensive smoldering in accumulated organic soils. Many agencies – especially in the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal plains, where forests and grasslands are heavily intermixed with wetlands – expend considerable resources in trying to prevent fires from entering wetlands. Unfortunately, fire control actions (such as plowing firelines along wetland margins) can themselves be disruptive to important ecological and socio-economic wetland functions.

However, we believe there are instances – even under dry conditions – where the likelihood of smoke management concerns resulting from wetland fires is actually low, while ecological benefits and opportunities to reduce fire agency resource allocation costs are high. In addition, some fires in wetlands – even under dry conditions – can be ecologically beneficial. We believe it is possible to identify the conditions and situations under which the characteristics of wetland fire are not economically or ecologically detrimental.

We have a unique opportunity to study the effects of fire on wetlands located at The Disney Wilderness Preserve because we have both pre- and post-burn data. We will evaluate the ecological effects of a variety of wilderness wetland fires on the study site in drought years to describe conditions under which ecologically beneficial and detrimental (both in terms of smoldering fires and timber loss) results occurred (Tasks 1 & 3). We will evaluate the relationship between a number of causal factors (e.g., wetland type, fire history, fuel loading, hydrological conditions) and the severity and ecological consequences of fire.