Mashomack staff eyes ‘prescribed fire’ that could happen by end of month

Town Board members and the public got a lesson Oct. 8 in prescribed burning from Mashomack Preserve’s Conservation and Stewardship Manager Cody-Marie Miller.

Ms. Miller deplores the term “controlled burn,” which implies controlling fires, but overlooks the specific planning that goes into each burning to ensure it achieves its ends safely and effectively.

Prescribed fires are beneficial to oak forests, helping to suppress invasive species so oaks can regenerate. The fires help to destroy Smilax, a climbing flowering plant with thorns that cover its vined stems and threaten the oak trees. 

Well in advance of implementing a prescribed fire, land managers compose a detailed plan clearly defining suitable weather and fuel conditions; safety measures; desired fire behavior; and the fire effects needed to meet.

Coming to Mashomack in the late summer of 2022, Ms. Miller already had considerable experience in The Nature Preserve’s practices, including burning in Florida, where she had responsibility for 23,000 acres of property.

She learned about prescribed burning and determined it could be a useful land management tool for the Mashomack Preserve that hasn’t been burned since 2009.

“The work is very similar and transferable even if the landscapes are different,” Ms. Miller said.

In September, The Nature Conservancy announced public meetings to explain the purpose and procedures for implementing what is likely to be a burn that could occur sometime between Oct. 28 and Nov. 22, and a second burn in 2025, sometime between February and July.

If the stretch of time to target a day for a burn seems wide, it’s because conditions must be exactly right, Ms. Miller explained.

That means an appropriate amount of rain to ensure the ground is sufficiently wet — rain within 2 to 10 days of the day of the burn and relatively calm winds coming from the west and pushing eastward. That’s so smoke is not moving over houses on the Island, since air quality needs to be protected.

The timing and choice of where to burn was selected to protect eagles’ nests — eagles are an endangered species — in one area of the Preserve. The area for the initial burn is along the southeast coast of the Preserve to avoid harm to the endangered birds.

To a question during the meeting about the effect of burning on the Island’s tick population, Ms. Miller said the effect tends to be temporary. She acknowledged ticks tend to return , just as mugworts, an invasive plant found on the Island and in many other areas, tend to recover after burning.