For three days in early September, a trained crew of Conservancy staff and partners conducted some of the most ambitious prescribed burns in the Ossipee Pine Barrens, yielding spectacular results.

The burns were conducted Sept. 3, 4 and 5 in Madison and Freedom, N.H., serving to restore 57 acres of globally rare pitch pine and scrub oak woodlands.

“This year's burns at Ossipee went great and were successful for a number of reasons,” said Jeff Lougee, manager of the Conservancy’s Mount Washington Valley Program. “We were able to accomplish nearly all of what we set out to do this year over three days of burning, and the burns resulted in some very good fire effects.  Due to a combination of the right weather conditions, and the way we applied fire to the units, these burns will go a long way towards meeting our ecological and fuel reduction goals for the pine barrens.”

This is the Conservancy’s second year of using prescribed burns to restore the Ossipee Pine Barrens. Last year, the Conservancy burned about 40 acres on two prepared units.

As with last year, the burns were superbly and safely conducted by Conservancy staff from New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts and New York. Also providing essential support were crew and equipment from the White Mountain National Forest, UNH Cooperative Extension, and the Madison, Freedom, and Ossipee fire departments.

Restoring Habitat / Reducing Hazards
This year’s burns created open areas in the forest canopy and burned off some large areas of leaf litter and duff. Removal of canopy and leaf litter is important for restoring habitat for some of the rare insects and birds in the Ossipee Pine Barrens.

The burns also play an important role in reducing the forest fire hazard that has built up here with the absence of fire for the past several decades.

Among the factors that set this year’s burns apart from last year’s were the two large units burned Sept. 4 in Madison, a total of 37 acres.

“This year was a turning point for our fire management program at Ossipee since we burned in unmowed vegetation for the first time, and we also conducted a burn across a significantly larger area than we did last year,” Lougee said. “These types of burns are very important for us as we move into the future to be effective and efficient with our resources.  Burning in unmoved fuels lets us create additional habitat diversity at the site, and in some cases lets us get much better fire effects during our burns.”
 
Long Legacy of Fire
The pitch pine/scrub oak woodlands found in near the 4-town conjunction of Freedom, Madison, Ossipee, and Tamworth depend upon fire for their maintenance and regeneration. For thousands of years, fire burned through parts of the Ossipee Pine Barrens every 25 to 50 years, usually ignited by lightning strikes. In recent generations, however, fire has been virtually eliminated from the areas because of improved suppression capabilities and changing land use. Since 1988, when The Nature Conservancy started protecting pine barrens habitat here, one of the organization’s top goals has been to gradually and carefully restore a regimen of prescribed burns to ensure the habitat's health and vigor.
 
These lands represent New Hampshire’s last viable occurrence of a northern pitch pine/scrub oak pine barrens. They are an important habitat for several bird species that are declining regionally, such as whip-poor-will, nighthawk, Eastern towhee, and brown thrasher; more than a dozen very rare moth and butterfly species are also found here. Accordingly, protecting and maintaining these pine barrens are among the goals of the state’s Wildlife Action Plan.
 
The Conservancy now owns 2,776 acres in the area, including 719 acres protected last year in a campaign involving the community, the state, a federal Forest Legacy grant, and a grant from the N.H. Land and Community Heritage Investment Program.

Funds to assist the Conservancy's ecological restoration of the Ossipee Pine Barrens have come in part from the U.S. Forest Service (Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry), and the U.S.D.A. Natural Resource Conservation Service's Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program.

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Parker Schuerman (prescribed burn); photo © Jeff Lougee (Ossipee burn crew).