Editor’s note: FAC Net member Brad Wright is the Emergency Management Coordinator for Pulaski County, Virginia, as well as a Liaison Officer with the Southern Area Gray Type 3 Incident Management Team. In this blog, Brad writes about recent gains in the community regarding fire adaptation and bringing multiple agencies together to make a difference.

The burning of forested areas in the Appalachians is a pre-colonization practice long used by Native Americans of the region to improve hunting, foraging and protection. For many years, settlers in the region imitated these same customs in their ways of living. Like most of the country, the Appalachian region experienced a drastic change in the use of fire as a tool as populations grew into forested areas, and the need for timber increased dramatically.

Now, after many centuries of fire prevention practices, we are understanding the need for good fire in the Appalachian region, and many are working to build capacity for more fire on the land.

Successful Burn Projects in Pulaski County

In Pulaski County, located in the New River Valley of southwest Virginia, land managers are bringing back prescribed fire in a meaningful way. Since 2007, Pulaski County has used prescribed fire to maintain forested areas of county parks, receiving overwhelming positive feedback from park visitors and recreators. From the beginning days of modest 25 – 30 acre burns, we have gone on to treat 2,000 acres with fire in a season through the Cross Boundaries Program identified in the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy. Future plans are to treat 3,000 acres in one season to include private, locally managed, and U.S. Forest Service lands identified as Cross Boundaries Projects. 

These burn projects have been a true community effort with a host of stakeholders – including: George Washington-Jefferson National Forest, Virginia Department of Forestry, Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Virginia Prescribed Fire Council, AmeriCorps, Team Rubicon, State Farm Insurance, Langhorne Road and Draper Mountain Estates Firewise Communities, New River Highlands RC&D, Pulaski County and Town Parks & Recreation, and Pulaski County Emergency Management offices.

Bringing in the Help of Volunteers

With the help of 20 Team Rubicon volunteers in the spring of 2021, three acres were thinned and piled during the Draper Mountain Estates Wildfire Preparedness Day.  The Pulaski County Wildfire Mitigation Module then took the debris to be burned and/or chipped at a later time. What took Team Rubicon two days to do would have taken our local six-person module weeks to accomplish. Team Rubicon is a highly motivated and equipped group that serves as a force multiplier once they have been brought up to speed on the task at hand. 

Team Rubicon volunteers with the Pulaski County wildfire mitigation module. (May 2021)

Pulaski County Wildfire Mitigation Module burn piles in the Draper Mtn. Community (February 2022)

During the 2022 spring burn season, Pulaski County was lucky enough to host a traditional 8-person AmeriCorps module for about six weeks. They served as a force multiplier for our wildfire mitigation module. During this time, we accomplished several projects – including putting control line on a 65 acre burn unit, and creating a one-acre shaded fuel break that was burned later in May as part of the Langhorne Road Community continued Firewise efforts. 

Langhorne Road Firewise Community 65-acre fuels reduction burn during the growing season (May 2022)

Left: AmeriCorps member putting in control line. Right: Burning around cabins on the Langhorne Road prescribed burn.

Other projects undergone with the use of the AmeriCorps module included burning piles in a county park, completing control lines on portions of two large Cross Boundaries burn units to protect WUI areas, and thinning around structures to create defensible space. Thanks to funding from the IAFC Ready, Set, Go program, we were able to complete chipping days for three different communities and two local parks. Having AmeriCorps as an addition to our local crew helped us achieve several projects that would have not been completed in the same time frame without them.

Communities are made of many different resources that all need coordination in order to prosper. Hopefully this approach will be embraced across the Appalachian region where community already means so much to its residents. 

****