Fire in the Pine Barrens Kramer Hall

By: Holly Seelman & Ben Brennan Hammonton, NJ

May 3, 2018

Introduction
Fire has largely impacted New Jersey’s environment since prehistoric
times.
Both Native American burning and natural fires have played a major
role in shaping the land.
Early on, Indians and Pioneers practiced burning the woods to clear
land for agricultural uses.
The first law to regulate land clearing by the use of fire was put into
effect in 1683; however, widespread interest in forest fire control did
not occur until the late 1800’s.

The Ecosystem and Fire

Fire is an essential part of Pine Barrens ecology as the
ecosystem has evolved to become fire dependent, meaning fires
are needed to maintain the unique Pine Barren habitats.
Sandy, acidic, nutrient poor soils do not readily decompose litter
and are often dry due to low water retention rate, causing the
Pine Barrens to be very fire prone.

Benefits of Fire
• Inputs nutrients into the soil
• Triggers seed release and activation, most specifically those
of the Pitch Pine species
• Creates open habitat needed for many species

Controlled Burning
The New Jersey Forest Fire Service works to conduct controlled
burns throughout the state to aid in the fulfillment of the
various ecological functions of fire while simultaneously
reducing the risk of large forest fires.

Stockton University’s Forest Management Plan

Developed by Professor George Zimmermann and Bob Williams, Stockton University
has adopted a Forest Management Plan in which various forest management
techniques will be implemented. The plan includes:
Delaware Avenue Site
3 plots of each to be burned include: Stoddard-Neal (uneven aged forest
management philosophy using fire and stressing ecological rather than economical
values), 1-2 years, 2-3 years, 4-5 years, 5-6 years, 10-11 years and 15-16 years
Northeast Site
Being used to examine features such as forest reproduction, small mammal
populations, edaphic ground conditions and much more.
Treatments are a combination of:
Control, thinned and clear-cut with variable retention (VR) Figure 2: SFMP Northeast Forest site; control,
Figure 1: SFMP Delaware Ave Site; marked
Clear-cut and thinned sites have a section crossed with natural slash vs. slash from thinned and clear-cut plots
plots burned on March 18, 2018
harvest
Each treatment has prescribed burned areas vs. no burn areas

Thermocouples
HOBO Data Loggers placed inside thermocouple sensors were
buried in the ground in various plots that were burned.
• Measure and record flame temperature and longevity, which
aids in the determination of speed, direction, heat and more

Figure 4: HOBO data logger

Figure 3: HOBO dataloggers inside thermocouple Figure 5: Thermocouple sensors buried in a row and
sensors; sensors being buried in the ground pre-burn
IR Guns marked with flags: pre- and post-burn.

Infrared guns used to measure flame

temperature in various locations

References:
• https://stockton.edu/forest-
management/forest-fire.html
• http://state.nj.us/dep/parksandfore
sts/fire/fire_history.htm
• http://www.pinelandsalliance.org/b
log/2016/05/fire-in-the-pines/
Figure 6: Student measuring flame
temperature with IR gun
Figure 7: Scatter plot of temperature recordings throughout Delaware Ave burns