//Fighting Fire with Fire

Fighting Fire with Fire

Richard Ayers, an operations steward with DCR, starts a fire with a drip torch. Photo by Ellen Kanzinger

Prescribed burns are being used for land management and habitat restoration in the Southeast. 

Rebecca Wilson gives the go ahead, watching the drip torch crew as they start to make their way across the preserve. As the day’s burn boss, she’s responsible for making sure everything goes according to plan at the South Quay Sandhills Natural Area Preserve in Suffolk, Va. 

The burn starts out slow, a few flames rolling across the eastern edge of the unit as the crew tests the weather conditions and makes sure the fire does not cross the swampy phragmites at the property’s boundaries. Once the test is complete, the drip torch crew proceeds to make their way back and forth across the preserve until the 43-acre burn unit is covered in flames and enveloped in a