Fired Up About Conservation: Prescribed Burns at Boyd Hill

Featured image: Prescribed burning has myriad benefits for the landscape and ecology, but also helps to mitigate larger, unplanned fires.

Smokey Bear famously taught us that we can prevent forest fires. But what if your forest needs fire to survive? 

Many of Florida’s natural communities, including scrub and pine flatwoods, are fire-dependent, meaning they rely on periodic fires to stay healthy. Our state’s long, wet summers produce heavy vegetation growth – ample fire fuel – and our spectacular thunderstorms supply the igniting spark. The result, for much of Florida’s post-Pleistocene history, has been regular, low-intensity fires across much of the region. In fact, the Florida Department of Agriculture estimates that before 1900, fire-susceptible areas may have burned as often as every 3 to 10 years. 

That story began to change in the 1930s. As more land was cleared for agriculture and settlements, and more forests managed for timber, fire suppression became the name of the game: all fire, whether natural or manmade, was seen as a catastrophe to be avoided. It would be another four decades before the paradigm shifted again, thanks to new research in forestry, with the Florida State Parks system’s first prescribed fire conducted in Falling Waters State Park in 1971. Today, nearly 300,000 acres of our state parks are managed with prescribed fire. 

Up from the Ashes

But why, exactly, do Florida lands need fire? Taylor Thornton, natural and cultural areas manager for St. Petersburg Parks and Recreation, explains that the benefits are myriad. “Prescribed burning,” she notes, “is a very important tool, crucial for maintaining ecosystems, supporting biodiversity, and protecting surrounding areas.” 

Most obviously, regular controlled fires help limit the buildup of underbrush and deadfall that can fuel larger, more difficult-to-contain wildfires. They also create a more open canopy, allowing new growth for plants in the understory (and benefitting animals who feed on those plants). A third benefit is harder to see, but no less important: because of their lower intensity, prescribed burns allow nutrients from burnt vegetation to return to the soil through ash, helping to increase the soil’s fertility. Finally, in places such as scrub habitats, fires help keep vegetation shrub-sized and thinned for habitat specialists such as the Florida scrub jay. 

This points to another fascinating fact about Florida’s fire ecology, says Thornton: Many Florida plants and animals have developed adaptations for living with fire. Gopher tortoises, those humble herptiles of the uplands, dig burrows in the sandy soil that are up to 40 feet long – the perfect place to shelter from fire, storms, and other elements. And some species of pine tree feature serotinous cones, which open and distribute their seeds only after exposure to the high temperatures of a fire. After thousands of years, these species have truly learned to flourish with fire – as we humans are still learning to do. 

Blazing Along, Very Carefully

All of this explains why you might, when walking your favorite trails at St. Petersburg’s Boyd Hill Nature Preserve, notice streaks of black soot on the trunks of trees, perhaps with some new growth springing up nearby. There’s no need to be alarmed, Thornton explains – this is just evidence of a recent prescribed burn. As supervisor of the park from 2018 to 2023, she helped oversee several of them.

“A fire takes lots of planning,” she says. First, park managers manually remove some of the underbrush and deadfall to optimize the amount of burnable material (or, in more technical terms, “fuel load”). Meanwhile, they monitor soil saturation to ensure that the fire will burn – but not too much – and wait for a southwesterly wind that will carry smoke out over the lake and not into the surrounding neighborhoods.  

Staffing is also critical. All participants in a prescribed burn must be property certified through the Florida Forest Service and the park must hire a “burn boss,” an individual with both certification and many hours of on-the-ground experience. 

With people and conditions all lined up, the park must obtain a permit from the state to conduct their burn. They also notify the homeowners associations of both Lake Maggiore Shores and Lakewood Estates, as well as the St. Pete Police Department.

Then – and only then – are they ready to burn. A prescribed fire takes several hours to complete. 

It may sound like an awful lot of trouble, but, Thornton says, prescribed fire is absolutely critical for maintaining the health of the natural refuge so many St. Petersburgers enjoy. Considering that as much as 40% of Pinellas County was once covered in fire-dependent scrub and flatwoods communities, it makes sense to understand fires as just another part of what makes wild Florida so extraordinary and so unique. 

Keen to learn more about the amazing world of Florida fire ecology? Watch Boyd Hill’s calendar for the guided hikes the park typically offers in the days after a prescribed burn. Who knows? Maybe it will kindle a new passion for Florida’s outdoors– or at the very least, spark your interest!

Learn more at stpeteparksrec.org/parks___facilities/boyd_hill.php