When weather and fuel conditions are right, workers may hear a morning announcement that the U.S. Forest Service will conduct a prescribed fire on Savannah River Site (SRS) that day.
Office of Environmental Management
April 23, 2024
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U.S. Forest Service firefighters from the Savannah River Site (SRS) and Shasta-Trinity National Forest in California, and students from the University of Georgia pause for a photo following the pre-event safety brief of a recent prescribed fire on SRS. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
AIKEN, S.C. — When weather and fuel conditions are right, workers may hear a morning announcement that the U.S. Forest Service will conduct a prescribed fire on Savannah River Site (SRS) that day.
What they don’t hear is the full story behind the fires. Why are they burning, who is doing it, and why now? The obvious answers come to mind first: Reduce potential wildfire fuels and of course the U.S. Forest Service. But often there is a lot more to the story.
Long before flames touch the ground, a team of Forest Service managers agree on actions needed to achieve goals in the Natural Resource Management Plan for forested areas on SRS.
One such action is prescribed fire. It can eliminate invasive plants, slow hardwood encroachment in areas, improving overall forest health, and reduce potential hazardous wildfire fuels, such as grasses, shrubs, trees, dead leaves and fallen pine needles. Prescribed fire also supports open savannah-like habitats for threatened, endangered or sensitive species. Federal regulations mandate that the Forest Service manage habitat for those species where they are found on SRS.
Read a related EM Update story about how the Hanford Site fights fire with fire via prescribed burns and helps manage unruly tumbleweeds. Strong winds at the Nevada National Security Site also power the pesky plants, prompting crews to clear "tumbleweed takeovers."
Each winter and spring during an active prescribed fire season, firefighters from across the United States train and work alongside SRS firefighters to improve their firefighting knowledge and gain fire line qualifications.
Likewise, SRS firefighters travel to other forest units in the U.S. for training and experience fighting fires in diverse forest conditions. Interagency agreements allow for the exchange of resources to help ensure that firefighters maintain specialized qualifications needed to fulfill their duties on SRS and when they respond to federally designated catastrophic wildfires or other emergencies across the country.
SRS regularly hosts federal, state and other partnering agency firefighters enrolled at the National Interagency Prescribed Fire Training Center in Tallahassee, Florida. They gain entry-level and supervisory experience with prescribed burning activities involving various fuel types found on SRS.
On a local level, Forest Service agreements with the University of Georgia and other schools allow students studying natural resources and fire ecology to work with trained firefighters in the application of prescribed fire at SRS. The students can see the effects of fire firsthand and how it can help grow a healthy forest. These valuable opportunities also offer a glimpse into federal firefighting opportunities.
State and federal air quality regulations dictate when prescribed burning can take place during the year and how much of an area can be burned. In southeast U.S., these opportunities most often occur in late winter and early spring when relative humidity and temperatures are lower. Lower humidity allows the smoke to go higher in the atmosphere where winds will disperse and transport the smoke away from the burn area. This helps to decrease the impact of smoke on employees on the site as well as nearby residents. The lower temperatures allow firefighters to work more safely and conduct prescribed burns to remove dead and downed woody debris on the forest floor, helping reduce hazardous fuels that would otherwise build up year after year.
-Contributor: Joe Orosz
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