Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Yesterday I was gone from the house for about three hours, and on the way home back down Highway 98, saw a huge billowy cloud of smoke about where my house is. Oh oh, I thought, my little shack is burning. But about a mile from the house by the side of the road, saw an orange warning sign with black letters on it "SMOKE."  Okay, then I knew it was the Forest Service burning the woods.
The smoke was so thick it covered the sun, and the rest of the afternoon was hazy and overcast with smoke because the southerly winds blew it right over where I live. Every year the Forest Service does controlled burns of the DeSoto National Forest, a section of which is nearby. This morning I saw one of their trucks going past the house and went down to their access road where they were parked.
I asked why they burned the undergrowth every year. They said it was to help the long leaf pine grow. These particular pines, native to Mississippi are beautiful trees that look like a bottle brush when they are young, and they need a fire cycle to propagate. They are valuable lumber trees. So in other words the Forest Service is burning everything else to accomodate these trees as a cash crop.
I said what about ground nesting birds like wood thrush and chuck will's widow and bob white--this is nesting season and fire would run them out or kill them. These birds are becoming increasingly rare. And what about the endangered gopher tortoise that inhabit these woods? The guys said "They like it when the undergrowth is burned off."  Then one of the guys, a clean cut nice young guy, said to propitiate me "I hear Obama just signed an order to make two million more acres of land into national forest."  He didn't say where.
They also told me Native Americans used to burn the woods, and when DeSoto the explorer came through there were trees and beneath the canopy the ground was pretty much clear of vegetation. It started to rain, and I went home, feeling as if the Forest Service is feeding the public a line to pacify anyone with questions.
susil