Prescribed Fire Practicum
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The Prescribed Fire Practicum is an experimental class designed to provide students from The University of Montana with technical training, practical applications, and theoretical foundations in ecological burning in the Southeastern United States. The class supports longleaf pine restoration on The Nature Conservancy and Georgia State lands. Faculty from the College of Forestry and Conservation’s National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis lead undergraduate and graduate students through a two-week curriculum of prescribed burning and supporting field and academic work. Before burning starts, students review literature 
documenting ecosystem function and evaluate burn plans based on this literature, and read land management plans and landowner guides. During the practicum, students participate in field trips with TNC ecologist and forest manager; interpret and monitor burn plans to meet ecological objectives; monitor fire behavior, weather and effects; map burn units in the field and digitally; perform briefings and after-action reviews; maintain daily written and photo journals; compile written synopsis of experiences; and prepare post-trip review and evaluation (oral and written).
Participating students all have experience as wildland firefighters and are studying forestry or natural resource management. This course gives them the opportunity assume positions of leadership that their normal fire assignments might not. Through the Practicum, the students are exposed to different a variety of land management objectives and fire environments, which will help to make them more dynamic fire managers.
In 2008, the team of four undergraduates and two graduate students managed six prescribed burns in the Moody Forest Natural Area and adjacent state lands, burning 600+ acres on eight of their available eleven days. One burn unit was an old growth turpentine longleaf pine trees; historically, longleaf pines were tapped for their resin, which was refined into turpentine. In these stands, the goal was to expose the ground for seedlings, without scorching the crowns or burning away the duff at the base of the trees, where seedlings may be sprouting. In the Charles Harrold Reserve, the team brought in the first prescribed fire to the endemic Georgia plume, a threatened deciduous shrub. At another site, the team burned a property that has no current longleaf pine population, but that will be planted with longleaf pine seedlings this spring. In Little Ocmulgee State Park, the team worked with state park employees to re-introduce fire into remnant longleaf pine stands and helped to build the state’s prescribed burn program.
In 2009, six undergraduates and one graduate student managed burns on eight units of TNC and Georgia State lands, burning more than 1,200 acres. The goals in 2009 were also to expose the ground for longleaf pine seedlings, preserve the duff at the base of trees, and to protect old-growth longleaf pine trees. The Georgia chapter of TNC was able to accomplish more than 25% of their prescribed fire goals in just 14 days through the efforts of the Practicum’s skilled fire crew.
Also in 2009, NCLFA research scientists LLoyd Queen and Casey Teske, along with UM graduate student Emily Garlough, studied the relationship between duff mound moisture content and post-fire duff consumption and used a thermal infrared camera to capture data on radiant temperature during the burns. (Duff is defined as the layer of decomposing organic materials below the litter layer of freshly fallen leaves, twigs and needles, and immediately above the mineral soil.) Concurrently, a research scientist from Rocky Mountain Research Station’s Fire Sciences Laboratory collected data on fire behavior. These research efforts will help scientists better understand the thermal characteristics of fire and to calculate thermal flux. Read their research report here.
Project development
Like the surrounding Georgia State lands, Moody is a longleaf pine-blackjack oak forest. In the 1700’s, longleaf pine covered as much as 90 million acres in North America; today, less than three percent of that forest remains. The longleaf pine forest hosts the most diverse array of species among forested ecosystems in North America; many of those are threatened or endangered species. Hence, The Nature Conservancy and others are trying to protect and restore the remaining longleaf pine forests across the southeastern U.S. The NCLFA’s partnership with TNC gives students an opportunity to practically apply their fire training and education and helps TNC to meet restoration and research objectives.
Principal Investigator: Carl Seielstad
Co-instructors: LLoyd Queen, Jim Riddering
2008 Students: Ann Hadlow, Jon Holmes, Anna Lahde, Tobin Orient, Tim Wallace, Devin Yost
2009 Students: Tyson Atkinson, Michael Bagan, Nicole DeWeese, Emily Garlough, Patrick Johnson, Jacob Miller, Jacob Quigley
View a gallery of photos from the 2008 practicum
