Picture of fires from early May that I hadn't gotten up on the blog.You can really see the spot fires around the Picayune Strand in the pic on the left. The picture on the right is actually the day before the pic on the left was taken.
Ignore the spots in the photo that are now permanently there :(
must send camera in for repair.
A week after the fire I had the chance to travel through the Picayne Strand on a field trip for work. We saw some of the burned areas. The fire was so hot, hotter than a "typical" natural fire for this area, that the natural pines burned to the tops, killing them :(
During a typical natural fire, the fire will not get high enough to burn the tops of the pine trees, and they will survive. The fire is necessary for the native lower growth plants, but not at the intensity of this fire.
Perhaps because of the low low water table because of the drought, likely because of historical draining of the Everglades and continued development and watering of lawns.... the fire was able to burn without natural controls. It's one thing to say fires are natural in this area, it's another for the fires to burn in unnatural ways because of the damage we have done to the area :(
1 comment:
That's pretty discouraging. I just read that the everglades are endangered big time from all of this urban development and global warming. It's one of the top 5 eco tourist sites that are endangered. One of the others is the Archipelago Islands.
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