Wildfire and Controlled Burns

As the climate continues to warm, wildfire poses a major threat to life and property on the Island, especially in the central sandplain ecosystem (where the Correllus Forest is located). This is where plant species have become adapted to fire, and where fire was used successfully by Native Americans for thousands of years to maintain the plant and animal species they depended upon for their survival. The lack of regular use of fire in the sandplain for the past several hundred years has resulted in a vast increase of “fuels” (living and dead organic matter), resulting in a situation we see mirrored across the Nation, and elsewhere: the potential for uncontrolled wildfire.

One of the highest priorities for the management of the Correllus Forest is restoration of the sandplain ecosystem, to:

• Reduce the threat of wildfire, and
• Restore and preserve the vast number of plant, insect, and bird species dependent on the regular use of prescribed burning.

Research

The Friends, with a grant from the Edey Foundation, is funding a critically important study of sandplain vegetation in the Forest. The research, being done by the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Woods Hole, will provide the Mass. Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) with information essential for reduction of “fuels” in the Forest that contribute to the threat of wildfire in and around the Forest. Equally important is the information that will provide for science-based habitat management for 50 declining fire-dependent plant, insect, and bird species in the Forest.