On September 23, 2025, MassWildlife hosted a Zoom webinar about MassWildlife’s Prescribed Fire Program. Prescribed Fire Program Manager Caren Caljouw will provide an overview of fire's ecological role on the landscape and the history of MassWildlife's prescribed fire program. She will demonstrate why fire is an important habitat management tool in Massachusetts, and showcase examples of how MassWildlife uses prescribed fire to conserve wildlife and improve habitat conditions. Habitat Biologist and Burn Boss Ben Mazzei will describe his recent experience on a wildfire deployment in Alaska with the Mass Inter-Agency wildfire crew and how that work not only helps communities at risk in other parts of the country but contributes to skills and training at home on prescribed fire.
NICOLE>>Thank you all for joining us today for the presentation, Fire and Wildlife Habitat, a natural process and management tool. Um, as you all probably just heard the little prompt from Zoom, we will be recording today's session and making it available on our website afterwards. So, if there's people you know couldn't attend today or things you really took away from this, please feel free to share that link um for future viewing. Uh our presentation today should be around 45 minutes and we'll have 15 minutes at the end for questions. Um and if you do have any questions, feel free to enter them directly into the chat at any time during the presentation and we'll try to get to as many as we have time at the end. Um please try to keep them on topic and um give our presenters as much information as they need to be able to accurately answer what you're looking for. Um, but I am really excited to have the opportunity today uh for you guys to hear from Caren Caljouw and Ben Mazzei who alongside Alex Entrup who couldn't join us here today lead uh MassWildlife's prescribed fire program. Caren is our prescribed fire manager who has a long history and amazing experience in this field as well as being a super awesome ecologist and really knowledgeable about our ecosystems we're working in. And Ben, our habitat biologist, who is our prescribed fire burn boss at the moderate level. Um, and who has been recognized on the national wildfire scene for his contributions here. Um, and our prescribed fire program has been go doing work for over three decades to help conserve and restore our fire influence communities here in Massachusetts. Um, and what started as a prescribed burn at one site, um, Hiram Fox in 1989 has grown to a Commonwealth wide effort supported by over 50 members of our Masswildlife team along with partners that we work with. Uh and today you'll hear a lot about the history of fire here on our landscape in Massachusetts, the evolution of our prescribed fire program, some of the outcomes of this tool that we're using on our landscape and some of the recent wildfire deployments um from our program staff. I hope that you learn a lot and feel inspired by the work of this team. Um and thank you for taking time out of your lunch to join us today. Um, so I'm gonna hand it over to Caren and Ben. Thank you.
CAREN >> Thank you, Nicole. And, um, as Nicole said, today we're really going to focus on, um, five themes: fire history and ecology, our fire program overview, and then an update on our recent prescribed fire season, and then just speak briefly about ensuring resiliency within our landscape and just an update on wildfire deployments. As Nicole mentioned, um, Alex could not be here with us today. He's on deployment in an engine assignment in California. So um you know but uh we will be sharing all of this with him and we look forward to sharing this with you today. So thank you for being here and joining us. Um you know we where to begin this story of fire. Well we can start with plants producing oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis. About 420 million years ago, concentrations reached a level that allowed fire to burn ever since Earth has been a fire planet and uniquely so. Um we fire remained a force on the landscape and has been an intrinsic part of our ecology. Plants and animals have co-evolved in the presence of fire. And fire has produced many of our most interesting and spectacular plants in New England as shown here. Whether it's
wild lupin, New England blazing star, orange fringed orcids or American chaffseed. Um all of these are quite unusual and rare and fire has a unique um story along with these species and we're actually very exciting to share that with you. So um you know as the last ice age ended there was a warming climate and fire was probably used as um indigenous people moved through their travels but it was fairly localized and there was a rapid expansion of fire wielding species and humans um and for countless reasons including shaping their environment. So during the archaic period, it marked a transition from the ice age boreal forest to the deciduous forest in the emergence of oak and chestnut and other nut-bearing trees. That expansion continued throughout the woodland period and there was more evidence of fire during that time. And at that time the islands, Long Island and Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, they were connected with the mainland there. They had not separated yet. So when Europeans began exploring and colonizing North America, they encountered the use of fire by indigenous peoples. And we have we know of that use about fire from indigenous people in their oral history. We know about it from the accounts of early settlers and explorers in describing what they saw with their own eyes. In some cases, they were biased in what they were seeing. And we also know about it from scientific evidence collected by researchers. So many of you have seen um information like the following slide which shows accounts from Verzano, from Wood, from Morton and Johnson and Williams and actually the journals of Michelle, a renowned French botonist who talked about the considerable extent of fire that was used annually in burning. And um we always come to this quote in the passage from notes from New England Canaan and uh Thomas Morton reported to the king of England describing the people and lands and animals of New England and the quote is such that it's a little um we changed a little bit or customize the wording. were accustomed to set fire to the country in all places where they come and burn it twice a year in the spring and the fall of the leaf. The reason that moves them to do so is because it would otherwise be overgrown with hinder weeds that would all be in crops wood and the people would not be able to wise to pass through the country out of beaten path. For when the fire is once kindled, it dilates and spreads itself as well against the wind, burning continually, night and day, until a shower of rain falls to quench it. And this custom of firing the country, it is the means to make it passible. And by the means, the trees grow here and there, as in parks, and makes the country very beautiful and commodious. Now, that's just one report. Um and there are many others and um you know we also have scientific evidence of fire in the prehistory of New England and the pre-European history of New England and that's charcoal from fires deposited in lakes and ponds and peatlands and corresponding fossil pollen analysis and we had that evidence for thousands of years before European contact and this diagram here is from Dr. William Patterson. It is from a fine resolution charcoal and fossil pollen core that was taken from Mary Dun Pond, a coastal plain pond um in Hyannis which is now a wildlife management area and the data was collected and analyzed at UMass and similar results are repeated in many other parts of Massachusetts but it shows that there is charcoal in the presettlement data as well. You can see the area is the charcoal to pollen ratio on the left hand side of that screen and you can see that presettlement fire was actually as abundant as post settlement fire. So um as we move on, survey data of witness trees were also important in showing the distribution of fire dependent vegetation where oak and other tree genre were found pre-european colonization. So that's important. Those records still continue. And fire remained a force on the landscape. European land clearing led to many massive and catastrophic fires and New England was no exception. This map shows forest fires in the 1880s. A fire in 1825 burned over 3 million acres stretching from Maine to New Brunswick and in such larger than any other fire in the US history. That was the largest from the US forest fire census in 1880. that record was found. Era of massive wildfires culminated in the great fire of 1910 known as the big burn which led the government um led by the US forest service to pursue a policy of fire suppression for safety reasons and for protection of forests at that time. So this has been the dominant policy for over a century and um we are now beginning to learn we are in a new era with climate change and the buildup of fuels and mega fires have become the norm out west and perhaps we are in a new era of fire. We will see how that progresses. Um, this was an article from the New York Times last year in 2024 where we were having wildfires throughout the northeast area. This is a chart from um DCR fire control. This was done by our friends um within DCR and they charted the wildfire occurrences from 2017 through 2024 and they actually the number of fires are in blue and the total acres burned are in orange red and you can see that spike in 2024 was quite extensive and unprecedented. 2024 was a benchmark year in recent fires for Massachusetts and the state totaled 1,249 wildfires with over 4,500 acres burned. It's not just a new era for wildfires. When we look at this, it's also a new era for fire restoration across the country and the world. People are realizing that the full suppression and exclusion of fire is really a field policy and it was a disaster for public safety and for ecology. Restoring fire to the landscape can promote ecosystem health and resilience. Natural communities that rely on fire still exist and they are often overgrown dense trees but are restorable. And this is a snapshot from southeast pine barrens and what the vegetation looked like after the 1964 wildfire. You can see the dense regeneration within this area. Natural communities that still rely on, you know, fire are there and we use sometimes mechanical tools to help us restore the structure and fire maintain these areas and develop the composition. Fire will help us maintain these areas over time. So, that's a really important thing. Fire is critical to the health of our pine barrens, our oak ecosystems, and we all know that oak is a keystone species to the eastern deciduous forest. And of late, we're not seeing much regeneration. And in areas, it's declining because of this. And it's because of likely because of fire exclusion and other problems with oak regeneration. Our grasslands, heathlands, and fire influenced wetlands are fens, acidic fens and calcareous fens. Some of these are our most ecologically significant natural communities in the state. They're relatively small footprint on the state holds massive ecological value and they require fire. In addition to promoting important natural communities, fire provides direct benefits to wildlife. In newly resprouting leaves are higher in nutrients and lower in unpalatable chemicals. Fire promotes seed and berry production and it feeds an entire food web. We know that burning, especially during the summer or fall, can draw deer into wildlife management areas and provide better opportunities for hunting and control of deer. Carbon cycle. I mean carbon and fire, it's a complex system, but carbon dioxide is absorbed by growing plants and then it's released through fire through combustion or decomposition and then reabsorbed by growing vegetation. You have a different process with the same result. But with fire, you also have ecological benefits and fire stored within the soil in a stable carbon and charcoal. So that's really important to remember. Species that fire promotes are usually very deep rooted. They store a tremendous amount of biomass below ground. Unless a plant is resistant to fire like oak, it is best to invest its resources below ground and little blue stem. Um, in many of our baceous plants have root systems that go down at least um 12 to 20 feet below the ground. This diagram was produced by um Jenny Dutral and uh she adapted it for our ecosystems here. So, we've talked about fire history and fire ecology and restoration um very quickly, but I want to bring us back to our mission at Mass Wildlife. We're not trying to manage for some specific time in the past with fire. We are not trying to replicate indigenous land management practices. We have a mission and we support that mission and we're responsible for the conservation of freshwater fish and wildlife and including endangered plants and animals. And that's really important that we follow our mission and the fire program is designed to do so and uses fire as an important tool in achieving that. Our agency has a legislative mandate, as many of you know, to perpetuate biological diversity across the Commonwealth by protecting and managing a range of habitats that support the species and that are dependent on them and whether they are rare or endangered or more common species. So these habitats, that habitat management responsibility is critical to what we do within the prescribed fire program. A huge number of our species of greatest conservation need in Massachusetts occur in fire influenced habitats. Um you can see that there's, you know, we put some figures here. 267 of the 365 upland species of greatest conservation need occur in fire influence habitats. And we touched upon some of those habitats and we will continue to do so through the presentation. And at least 250 of our wetland species occur in fire influenced habitats. Acidic peatlands, calcareous fens, coastal plain ponds. They're all within those landscapes that we manage. Masswildlife's habitat program works to restore those habitats through active habitat management. And we work directly to benefit rare and declining species, game species, and a number of natural communities that are prior influenced. The habitat team brings many tools to bear. We're working to reestablish the desired structure and composition to set the stage for natural communities to flourish and then use fire over time within those areas. Fire as we know is not only a tool but it is also a natural process. Our maintenance phase is the application of fire as a natural process which allows a natural community to express itself. The end of restoration and the beginning of maintenance may be obscured and variable until those pathways become clear and expressed. It often takes time to restore the health of all of the interconnecting parts of an ecosystem, and we're often surprised to see what is waiting to be revealed when that happens. Fire is so central to our vision for restoration that before we plan a project, we evaluate it for its application of fire. If a fire influence site is fraught with barriers to burning, we might not actually engage within and decide that we can't effectively manage within that area. So that's something we do. We do a lot of planning um before we actually put fire on the ground and we have to make sure that the site is viable for that management activity. Our prescribed fire program missions outlined here. It's to conserve and restore the fire influence natural communities of Massachusetts and their inherent plant and wildlife diversity. Um, our mission is outlined within our prescribed fire manual and it's available online. It sets standards. It was approved by our Board of Fisheries and Wildlife in 2017 and it details our policies and procedures including standards of operation and planning and training. MassWildlife does follow a two track system for qualification on prescribed fire and the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (the national standard) requires wildfire experience and mass wildlife prescribed burn boxes must meet that national qualification. We have at least 48 staff who are trained and qualified to participate on fire. And we have um I'm the prescribed fire manager, but we have two prescribed burn bosses and a very skilled crew of prescribed burn crew. And they're made up of district staff. They're made up of biologists and habitat restoration ecologists. And we also other volunteers and partners work very closely with us on our prescribed fire program. DCR um fire control is our biggest partner and they are at almost every burn that we conduct. They bring crew and equipment allowing us to achieve our objectives. Um, our other partnerships are with local fire departments and um, you know, prescribed fire is a partnership. It's building bridges and working with your partners in many ways. And partnerships include federal, state, local government, and many other private conservation partners throughout the state. And we are thankful to all of them for their participation. and we look forward to continuing that work. So, America the Beautiful Challenge grant um was initiated a few years ago through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. It has allowed MassWildlife to partner with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe and to create a prescribed fire fellowship. Shown here is Katan Paul on the left and he's actually at a TRX workshop in Maine this week and he's on most of Mass Wildlife's prescribed fires and we're working closely with the Mashpee Wampanoag and trying to implement prescribed fire and um ensure that their staff become trained in the fire culture that they feel is important to them. So we also recently worked with a Nipmuc Hassanamisco band and implemented prescribed fire on a reservation in Grafton. Um and it was a very moving experience and we look forward to continuing that work with them and other indigenous partners as we move forward. So this map just shows all the sites where MassWildlife has completed prescribed burns or has started planning and has contributed to resources whether that's crew assistance or funding and you can see there are a large number of sites on Cape Cod, the Elizabeth Islands Cutty Hunk Island, Penikese, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and then we travel across the state out to the Bershires and the fens and the ridgetop pine barrens there. The MassWildlife habitat grant program has contributed funding for prescribed fire throughout the state and has supported numerous towns and land trusts in um and getting prescribed fire on the ground. MassWildlife programmatic growth, as Nicole mentioned, has increased exponentially. You can see in that photo on the right, this was the first burn at Hiram Fox WMA um Jon Scanlin right and Bill Patterson in the background and several foresters from DCR. And it was very small burn. Was only two acres. And then but you can see the growth within the program on that on that um graph on the on the left because um it shows the growth from 2010 through 2025. And to date this year um we're a little bit behind our goal, but we have achieved 28 burns in 1,200 acres this year. We took a little hiatus in 2016 and we worked on our policy and guidelines and that was really important because lots of our partners contribute to that development of our guidelines and we're thankful to them for helping us achieve that. We try to keep the public informed of prescribed fires through our websites, our newsletters, articles, and forums like this. Um, we work very closely with the local fire departments and others to post information on social media and news outlets. and our fire managed WMAs are posted with signage on the day of prescribed burns, including area temporarily closed signs where we encourage people to stay away from active burning. So, that's really important. Um, the local fire departments are really great in getting notification out the day before and the day of burns. and often times their Facebook pages will post where the burn is occurring within that local community. Uh there have there have been several articles burning for wildlife and we'll continue to try to get information out as best we can. I'm now going to turn this over to Ben and I'm going to ask him to focus on some highlights of the 2024 and 25 season and then actually give us a overview of um a project through each district. Ben, are you ready to take over?
BEN>>Yeah, for sure. Thanks, Caren. Um so yeah, for 2024 and 2025, uh we burned uh 24 different sites, over 3,000 acres. Uh we ended up with five new sites uh brought into the fold uh at Quabog WMA, Richardson WMA, some out in the Western District, Hop Brook WMA. We did some burning in some wetlands and actually got to use canoes, which was pretty exciting, uh to do some of the lighting. And then we've done some work on some of our conservation lands at Muddy Brook. And then uh we visited the Northeast District and we'll talk more about that as we move forward. Map shows uh active uh prescribed fire sites across Massachusetts. And so, uh, these are our WMAS and, um, we're going to take a little road trip and we're going to visit each of our our five districts and we'll highlight a property and some management styles, uh, and techniques at each of those sites. We're going to start our road trip in Western Mass at the uh, Fairfield Brook WMA and this is in uh, Richmond. And so, this is a pretty cool site. Um it is a uh calcareous fen uh which means that it's a wetland that has a bunch of calcium rich uh groundwater that seeps up through the soil. And this is a really unique natural community home to a bunch of rare and interesting plants that really require these conditions in order to thrive. Um using prescribed fire on these sites helps maintain the open sunny conditions that the plants need. uh but then also provides a pulse of uh nutrients that stimulates the growth uh and really interestingly some of that stimulation of those nutrients really opens up these connections uh between the plants and then underground fungi. So the uplands are currently in the process of being restored. Uh they had a whole bunch of non-native um cool season grasses and lots of invasive plants. So, we're working on getting rid of those to establish a warm season native grassland. Uh, this this grassland when it's restored will provide habitat for both grassland birds and pollinators. This um this picture is pretty interesting because it shows that the unit borders a road. So because of that uh we work really closely with the town fire department and prescribed fire benefits not only rare species and game species like turkey and deer and grouse and bear but it also allows us this unique opportunity to have training with our local fire department and our DCR uh fire control resources. So often times on the fires the local fire department uh will send their staff their fire engines. They often have really large tankers of water and they provide those things to us on the fire to help support it. Um, so the picture in the upper right hand corner shows uh a parnassia miner bee on the fen plant grass of so these are really rare in Massachusetts but the cool thing is the fire at Fairfield Brook is really helping um these insects and these plants at this site. So, next we're going to uh drive a little ways to the Connecticut River Valley and we're going to visit uh Montague Sand Plains. Uh and that's in the town of Montague. And this is a really unique site. Uh it's one of the largest intact pine barrens in New England. And so pine barrens have soil that's really nutrient poor and it's often composed of uh sand and gravel that's a resulting of post glacier activity. Um because these sites are so well drained and dry the plant communities found at these sites are often used to and have had to evolve with the presence of frequent fire. So Montague Plains is the home to dozens of state-listed plants and animals and has a rich history of wildfires. Um, another interesting thing about uh this site is that following research from UMass about crown fire risk. And so crown fire is essentially when you see wildfires on the news, uh, crown fire is whenever fire runs between treetop to treetop to tretop. And basically it's big fire running across the forest. And so UMass did research uh, in order to try to protect some of the local communities of like Lake Pleasant has had wildfires that have affected them before. Um so some of the research that UMass did we implemented on the planes and that was to basically open up that canopy to prevent that crown fire and in that process it really allows us um to benefit a lot of the rare species and some of the game species as well. So the pictures here on the top, it shows that um that canopy after it's been thinned. And so you see these large mature pitch pines and oaks that were left there, but then in the understory you have a patchwork of blueberry and scrub oak and shrubs, wild flowers, sedges, and grasses um which really benefit some of the species at the bottom. So really interesting. And on the bottom left hand corner is a picture of a bird egg and that's a whip-poor-will which is a state listed species uh that was in that's in decline but has really thrived at places like Montague and some of these other fire-influenced communities and that picture was taken this last year after a prescribed fire where instead of trying to build a really robust nest on the ground um whip-poor-wills utilize camouflage in order to hide their egg and it's basically laid right on uh the leaf litter after a fire. Uh we have ruffed grouse that utilize some of the thick cover and the blueberries and the shrubs, you know, not only for um protection from predators, but also for food sources. Then we have lupin, which is a wildflower that a lot of people are familiar with, but uh lupin was not as um it wasn't found as much at Montague because of the overstory canopy and since we've opened it up, it's really reestablished itself, especially with the introduction of fire. And then on the bottom right is a slender clearwing sphinx moth, which is a blueberry feeder. Um, which really interesting moth that uh really thrives with the introduction of fire and blueberry. All right, so we're going to keep moving east and uh we're going to head to the town of Hardwick and visit Muddy Brook, which is in our central district. So, Muddy Brook's uh located in the Muddy Brook Valley. Uh the site changes. It's really unique. It has open water, freshwater marshes, grassland, shrublands, oak woodlands, and it even has these really neat sweeps on the UPS slope areas with like oak, sugar, maple, and hickory uh communities. Uh the northern section of the restoration area is over 2 and a half miles all the way down to the south end. Um, and because of the diversity of the habitats within this project area, site's now home to an impressive array of, you know, a lot of common species, but also rare wildlife and plants. It's not uncommon for us to catch glimpses of turkey and deer heading into the recently burned areas at this site. Uh, and there was a really cool article that our senior restoration ecologist Chris Buelow just wrote for the MassWildlife magazine about Muddy Brook and really dives into some of the um some of the restoration efforts, but also some of the really really interesting uh responses not only from bees and moths, but also some of the larger fauna as well. Um, so I'm going to tell a little bit about the story of Muddy Brook and some of the responses. It'll just be a sort of overview of some of the things that Chris talked about a lot in that magazine article. So, the cute little bird on the upper lefthand corner is a prairie warbler. Uh they're declining shrubland bird species and since the restoration work has happened at Muddy Brook, we've seen them increase uh on the site in quite impressive numbers. Um the site in general went from no whip-poor-wills for many decades to now having one of the largest populations of whip-poor-wills in this state. There's even been nighthawks spotted uh at the site, which is a species that no longer is known to nest in Massachusetts because of loss of habitat. The uh upper right hand corner picture shows fern leaved foxglove uh which showed up at the site after we did the restoration work and then after a growing season burn uh the seeds were sitting dormant in the soil for many decades and were stimulated by the fire and sunlight. Cool thing about fern leaved foxglove is that it's uh really unique is that it's a partial parasite on the roots of oak trees and it utilizes the fire to stimulate uh a relationship in the soil between the roots and fungus that's in the soil and then it really expresses itself. So, um, in that picture with a fern leaved foxglove, uh, is the orange sallow moth. And so, it's very specific just to feed on the nectar of that plant. And so, that was found following the growing season once, uh, once the fire had come through. And then lastly, lupin. We talked about a little bit before, it's a really important plant. Uh, it's an important host plant and, uh, we've been working with, uh, the restoration ecologist to reestablish its populations there as well. All right. So, now we're going to hop up over to Northeast District, William Ford WMA, and that's located in uh Newberry, Mass. So, the site's pretty cool. It's a unique oak woodland uh with grassy openings and uh it's on an island which is actually surrounded by a large expanse of salt marsh and it's sort of hugged by the Parker River. So, it's a really unique site. Has a great example of like oak and hickory hawthorn tree um which is all fire influenced natural communities. So the restoration work there uh has involved treating invasive plants removing of some of the dying red pine plantations uh taking out some of the hedgerows to really expand the sightlines for a large grassland for species that need that. Um, and then this past year, we worked with DCR Fire Control, Newberry Fire Department, uh, and implemented our first prescribed fire at the site. This picture just kind of gives you a glimpse of that that nexus or that interface of oak woodland, salt marsh, and the Parker River. So, not only are we trying to improve habitat for rare and common species like ruffed grouse, but we have American woodcock, eastern whip-poor-will, eastern towhee seen in the picture there, black ducks, and other pollinators. Uh, this site's cool because it's also uh stocked with pheasants. So, we expect uh improved hunting opportunities uh over the coming years. All right. So now, if we dare, we're going to take a ride down 495 and hopefully not get stuck in any traffic outside of Boston. And uh we're going to visit the southeast region at Frances Crane WMA. Uh and that's in Falmouth. And so this is a really unique site for both songbirds, but also uh some of our upland game birds as well. So, uh Frances Crane is a large WMA. It's 2500 acres. Uh it has two different units. A northern unit that's commonly referred to as the pheasant area. Uh our staff do stock pheasant there for hunting in the fall. And then there's a southern area that's separate but close by. And that's usually referred to as the quail area. And so quail are actually stocked there for uh hunting enthusiasts in the fall as well. Um so the site's pretty unique. It contains nearly 400 acres of grass. uh a sandplain grassland which is a really rare globally rare community and it's one of the largest impact sandplains in New England that's uh partially just focused on managing for grassland birds. Other species are managed as part of the fire and the habitat work we do there but um it's one of those ones where we have a large expanse of grass we can manage it for these birds that need wide open spaces. Uh so habitat restoration began in 2014 included selective tree removal to open up with the grassland mulching invasive plant control and prescribed fire. Uh this is a neat photo series here. So in the upper right hand corner, three weeks postfire. So we came through, we had a fire, everything was burned in black and three weeks after we're getting green up. Uh we're seeing bird’s foot violet show up. And then the upper left corner picture is eight weeks postfire. You can already see grasses, false indigos coming up. Um, and then the bottom picture is uh sandplain gerardia, which is a federally endangered plant. And then we have birds that utilize this site in rare species like grasshopper sparrow, prairie warbler. Um, there's a rare bee that feeds on wild indigo. And then frosted elfin is another one. So, some of the goals at Crane have been immediate and obvious. you know, a reduction of invasive plants, uh, as increased access and huntability of the area. Um, but then also in recent years, we're seeing some of these results from the management for rare species. So, um, the number of breeding pairs of grasshopper sparrows, which is a state listed species, has more than quadrupled in recent years. Another really cool, uh, insect, the purple tiger beetle, uh, used to be just found in small pockets in low numbers, but now is pretty much widespread across the site as well. So that that kind of concludes our road trip across Massachusetts. Thanks for coming along. I hope you enjoyed it. Uh Caren is going to talk a little bit more about uh managing for the future and what sort of this management look like and then we'll get back and tie it all together at the end.
CAREN>> So, we thought we'd give um an example of the Miles Standish complex um in our discussion about resilient landscapes. And um the Commonwealth's definition of resilience is the ability of a system and its component parts to anticipate, absorb, accommodate or recover from the effects of a hazardous event in a timely and efficient manner. and um that was in our state hazard mitigation plan from 2018 that the Commonwealth came up with. And um for an ecosystem that means having all of its component parts, plants and animals and the ability to regenerate and the ability to withstand and respond to disturbances like fire, storms and pests. And um that this is an aerial imagery of the ongoing habitat restoration work of MassWildlife and DCR in the Mile Standish complex and that includes um Mile Standish State Forest, Southeast Pine Barrens, Cashot WMA, State Reserves, Maple Springs WMA, and Halfway Pond WMA. So, it's a complex area um uh over 20,000 acres of protected conservation lands. And this particular area encompasses about 2,000 acres within um uh a campground area. And that's Charge Pond in the middle. If you're trying to get your bearings on where we are here, the soils in the mileage area are sandy, um, deep outwash sands and very drought-prone. The vegetation's adapted to those conditions and so the vegetation tends to be high in oils and very volatile. When the weather lines up with an ignition source, fire can be very intense and spread rapidly out of control. As many of you know, Plymouth has a long history of large and extreme wildfires. This map actually shows the footprints of the large and medium-sized fires within that complex between 1921 and 2010. Um the largest fire in that's shown on this map is the 1957 fire which burned over 15,000 acres and it ran from Carver to the ocean and um many of you have seen the recent articles that have been in the paper in the Plymouth Independent and if you haven't I encourage you to take a look at them. Um they are talking about the great fire of 1900 in the first article and the second article actually talks about some of the more recent fires and uh the great fire happened in early fall and is shown it's not shown on that previous wildfire map because we don't have a written outline of where it occurred. we only have um the information that individuals provided through newspapers and records and um some journals. So uh the chat will provide links to both of those the articles in that series and um it's interesting so please take a look at them. Um, fires were so hard to stop under those extreme weather conditions and wildfires can burn through the tops of trees and what's known as a crown fire. And this is just a diagram that shows you the different types of crown fires and why they potentially happen. When flammable trees are actually too tightly spaced, fire can move into the treetops and it can move from treetop to treetop and it's almost impossible for firefighters to uh safely and successfully engage the fire. They can't. It's just um it becomes catastrophic. And so um embers are carried long distances by the wind. And when trees are more widely spaced as we now have been in managing some of the fuels then fire tends to say near the ground and it's manageable for firefighters to control that fire and the distance embers can be carried by the wind is greatly reduced as well. So the restoration treatment within mile standish complex will increase the spacing between trees to reduce the risk of active crown fire and prescribed fire and keep the shrub layer shorter and pruned lower to the ground. So that's really important to understand and this diagram helps you understand that. This map actually shows crown fire risk within that area. It's based on the 2020 Landfire data and Landfire is a federal program that provides vegetation and wildland fire and fuels information using the same weather parameters in this modeling that were under the 1957 wildfire. It shows areas that would likely experience surface fires. Those areas in green on this map are surface fire. Those areas scorching yellow are crown fire and then the red is um is traveling canopy fire. You can see the difference between the treated areas which are mostly in green and the untreated forest which is mostly in red. The restoration projects are reducing the risk of active crown fire and we'd be more and than happy to talk to you more about this and provide more information later. This is a photo of the first prescribed fire in that recently thinned area. You can see pitch pine regeneration and scrub. You can't see that this is a healthy there are lots of healthy grasses and sedges and wildfires and low bush blueberry growing in this area. Ecologically, it's a very busy place. The other um wildfire risk in this area is the fact that southern pine beetle is a new arrival to our region and it's arriving from the mid-Atlantic and southeastern US and it's likely going to result in a massive mortality of pitch pine. The beetles, roughly the size of a little grain of rice, attack and can kill healthy mature trees and they move in a wave through a dense pitch pine forest, killing nearly every pitch pine in their path, especially if the forest is dense. And so, um, that's something that DCR is monitoring quite closely and we know that it's in parts of southeastern Massachusetts on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Because of the warmer winters and the longer growing season, south southern pine beetle has expanded from its historic range and the mid-Atlantic into New England and it feasts on those densely uh unhealthy forests. The impacts thus far have been devastating and you can see we're going to show some of that on um the results of that on Long Island. These are pictures from Long Island where they have been dealing with southern pine be for almost a decade now I believe. And uh the top photo you can see where there's dense forest. The bottom photo shows um where trees are down and dead. And once an infestation is established, the options really aren't great and it's quite costly to remove the materials that um that actually are on the ground. The alternative is to do preventive management, thinning and burning, increasing air flow through the forest and the woodland. It disrupts the pheromone communication between the beetles and it also improves water availability for the remaining trees which allows them to make more pitch and actually confront the beetle as it comes through. The resulting habitat is worse for southern pine beetle but much better for many of our species of greatest conservation need. So there's an urgency in our work to address this um especially on Cape Cod and in Plymouth fairly soon. We do know that our management in pine barrens really shows um an immediate response from large suites of pine barrens dependent rare moths like large suites. Um a dozen moth species that are considered quite rare in Massachusetts usually come in pretty quickly. And this is a representation of some of the species that have been returning to the mile standish complex and um you know and so we have monitoring underway to um follow that over time. We also are working quite closely with manomet and manat bird observatory is conducting um management. They have point counts out for a number of bird species. And we're looking at um the characteristics of pine barrens that feature healthy ecosystems. And in this case, they're um actually looking at a number of bird species including yellow throat, eastern towhee, pine, and prairie warblers. and they've banded dozens of prairie warblers in areas that we're burning and actively managing. And this represents a significant increase um over time for those species. They'realso conducting vegetation surveys along with these point counts for birds and um we expect to hear more from that research in the next year or two.
NICOLE>> Caren, I just want to jump in real quick that we have five minutes remaining.
CAREN>> Okay.
NICOLE>> To remind you guys, but also to remind everyone listening, if you do have questions, um, please put them in the chat and even if we don't have time, uh, to directly answer everyone, we're going to try to answer in writing and follow up, too.
CAREN>> Thanks, Nicole. Yeah, I'll just rush through this. Um, our specific monitoring and survey protocols that we use in mass wildlife really depend on the research and monitoring objectives within a specific landscape. And um, you know, the monitoring we use in fens might be different than a shrubland or a forest in our avian monitoring or plant monitoring. So um we are now currently working with DCR and Westfield State University uh to design forest inventory protocols for MassWildlife so that we can contribute to that statewide continuous forest inventory that's underway. So I think that let's see here you know a knowledge sharing is really important and I just want to make it clear that we do um we do meet with our partners on a regular basis. We objectively look at our management and try to make sure that we're following um our protocols and adapting as we need to over time. And I'm going to turn this over to Ben. Ben, you're gonna have to rush through this, but sorry about that.
BEN>> No, that's fine. Thanks, Caren. Um, yeah, so part of the planning process in order to protect communities and come up with a coordinated plan is to develop fire management plans. And so that process is being uh undertaken with Mount Tekoa, which has seen uh wildfires uh over multiple years. And uh it's an area of concern both for for us, the local fire department, and the local communities. Um yes. So we can just move through Moose Meadow Wildfire. Um during the busy fall last year, Moose Meadow wildfire occurred within this fire management plan uh for Tekoa. Um so DCR fire control and local fire departments were really busy fighting fires uh that were long duration and those fires oftentimes were burning down into the duff and causing smoke issues. So part of this planning process is to come up with coordination between different resources and then uh to include the community um to have a voice so that we can you know better protect these areas. Going to touch upon uh wildfire uh wildfire deployments in 2025. So as Caren said before DCR fire control is our biggest partner in prescribed fire. Uh DCR fire control has responsibilities for assisting local fire departments across Massachusetts for wildfires. So, uh, during this last summer, Alaska saw a historic number of wildfires. Um, and so the state asked for assistance. Um, so Alaska required or requested assistance from out of state. So DCR fire control mobilized a 20 person inter agency hand crew, which was led by some of their fire wardens, Roy Leard, uh, Ben Janelle, Brian Mayer, and a bunch of other DCR folks were on that as well as a few MassWildlife folks. So we got a chance to fly into Fairbanks. were on a few different fires. Uh got picked up from the airport in a really cool uh flame uh painted bus. Um and got to do some really good work uh out there. One just interesting thing is because these areas are really remote uh they often can't get water and hoses out to them and so we ended up digging into the perafrost uh like three feet down to find frozen soil to mix that in uh to help put out some of those fires that were in remote areas. And yes, mosquitoes are no fun out there. Uh recently, Alex Entrop and Dan Bove uh went are actually in California right now. Iowa DNR has a fire engine that was out, uh supporting Northern California, and they needed some trained qualified staff to help run their engine. And so, uh we were able to make them available. And so, they're out there now. They're helping and supporting fire line construction and then also doing some uh lightning uh IIA stuff as well. And just briefly touching on the benefits of wildfire deployments. You know, it allows our staff to get these federally recognized qualifications, allows us to build partnerships with federal, tribal, state, local governments um and allows us to support these people uh both nationally and internationally that um are requiring help. And I just want to touch upon so Massachusetts and New England this last fall in 2024 had historic wildfire season. And so these resources that we're usually sending out west or to Canada, some of them actually came to New England to help uh with this. You know, there's a lot of smoke in the air and a lot of long duration fires. So just wanted to mention that. And I think with that maybe we have like a minute for uh some questions, maybe a few minutes. I just want to thank everybody for taking their time today. It's great your interest. Please reach out if you have further questions. Um I think there's some links that you can check out as well.
NICOLE>> So thank you guys so much. That was wonderful. Uh and said there's a lot to cover so it took a lot of time but I think we have time to squeeze in two questions. And I really do encourage people if there's questions we don't get to um or things you think about later, you can always feel free to reach out any of the three of us or Alex um and ask things. We also will hopefully have other events like this in the future. We do walk and talk series in the spring. Um so keep your eye open for other other events that come through. Um but jumping into a couple questions. First question, what can fire do that other forest management techniques such as cutting cannot do?
CAREN>> You want me to start Ben and then you can add in?
BEN>> Sounds good.
CAREN>> Uh um fire can actually remove litter on the forest floor where cutting deposits litter um and then it releases um nutrients into the soil. It creates these bare soil areas where certain plants can um actually germinate and the heat of a passing fire can actually uh break the hard seed coats of many of these plants that are dormant under the soil like wild lupin or sandplain gerardia. And um you know we touched upon that relationship between oak trees and um the fern leaved fox glove. Th those are relationships that are only possible with fire.
NICOLE>> Anything else to add Ben or you think?
BEN>> I would just say I mean the interesting thing I think too with fire is because often times it's found in these droughty soils the plant communities have evolved with fire. So it promotes and stimulates uh oak to regenerate, oak to have mast, and then you know the blueberry flush that you get after a fire is pretty tremendous as well. So um those are things that mowing can't do um as well as fire.
NICOLE>> So right, another question. Are there pre and postburn monitoring requirements when running fire through areas with protected species?
CAREN>> Yes, I rushed through that slide, right? because I knew yeah we were running um late on time and so um there's a there's fire effects monitoring and then many of these many of these sites there are actual monitoring in place for certain very rare species um including as I said the sandplain gerardia where there are accounts conducted on a yearly basis and then we've found through some of that research that um that particular rare plant um actually thrives when we have fire every two years or so. So we're learning from that monitoring that's in place and continuing over time.
NICOLE>> We have run slightly long. Um but um is there anything else you guys want to conclude with before we sign off today?
BEN>> Yeah, I don't have anything else. I just thanks everybody for taking the time and please reach out if you have more questions or if you see fire on a WMA that you uh frequent, please reach out and uh we'd love to tell that story uh to you in person. So thank you.