By ANA RISANO
Insider Staff Writer
It’s that time of year again, when smoke clouds the air and Facebook fills with questions about who’s burning and where.
But unlike a bonfire to clear excess debris from a property on a mild-weathered day, these prescribed burns help existing plant life flourish and have a long history in the Sandhills, with its longleaf pine savannas.
“We live in a fire ecosystem — every plant, every animal is a result of fire,” said Jesse Wimberley, coordinator of the Sandhills Prescribed Burn Association.
Wimberley lives on the old Speight family farm in West End. His family has been farming in the area for several generations. He took over the farm in the 1980s. At 66, he’s a fourth-generation burner.
Wimberley burns and educates others on the importance and rich history of fire maintenance. Previous generations used controlled burns to prevent wildfires and protect farmland.
“I’m trying to reach back and pull forward what we used to do,” he said.
Burn season traditionally starts around December and January and runs through early spring. Wimberley said going back 100 years — in the days when cattle roamed free — farmers would burn the land to replenish it for grazing. Plants like wiregrass rely on fire to produce viable seeds.
Wimberley called it a “cultural marker” for the season. But these days, he said any day could be a burn day, depending on the weather. Given the warm and mostly dry fall, he said a couple of rains would improve the burn ability of the local lands and enhance safety.
Burns are important for several reasons, from maintaining tree density to ensuring sunlight can reach the forest floor. Pine savannas are unique habitats various creatures depend upon, like the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. There are also forest floor plants like the rare pyxie moss, and wiregrass.
Wimberley previously said the work is called “prescribed burning because every tract of land has a unique prescription,” similar to humans needing to go to a pharmacy.
On top of checking weather conditions, like humidity and wind, burners check the “fuel” moisture on the forest floor. That fuel is a combination of leaves and tree limb debris. A property that hasn’t seen fire in 50 years likely has more fuel on the ground compared to a site that sees fire every three years.
In the case of 50 years without fire, Wimberley said it would make sense to burn in the dormant season — winter — to have calmer conditions.
This fall, Wimberley was getting the word out to landowners about setting up fire breaks, or trails clear of burnable debris so fire has a stopping point. That way, when conditions align, people can be ready to burn.
Each year, between 12,000 and 17,000 acres are burned in the Sandhills. Much of that property is in the Sandhills Game Lands, property owned by The Nature Conservancy and public parks like the Walthour-Moss Foundation preserve.
In March, the North Carolina Forest Service conducted a prescribed burn on the Whitehall at Reservoir Park property off Pee Dee Road.
Before a burn happens, a lot of preparation goes into the site. Like with establishing fire breaks, people walk the land to check for any issues like holes people could fall in or dead trees that could spread the fire. Then the teams go out with safety gear, drip torches, blowers and water.
Wimberley also said Moore County has one of the highest rates of wildfire in the state, and that the “best remedy to a wildfire is prescribed fire.”
Moore County ranger Brandon Bibey, with the state Fire Service, agreed, saying that in 2023, the county experienced 175 wildfires that impacted 478 acres. Wildfires are any unplanned burns in a natural area. They can start because of natural causes like lightning strikes, but most are caused by humans.
“When we do burns like that, it reduces the fuel if someone builds a careless fire or there’s a lightning strike,” Bibey said. “The fuel is down so the fire is less intense. And if there is (prescribed) burn land, we can use it as a fire break to cut off a fire or just reduce the fire amount because it’s been maintained and there is less fuel to burn.”
Wimberley gave a “hats off” to the North Carolina Fire Service, saying they do a good job of catching wildfires early. He said the last catastrophic fire in Moore County was in April 1963. It started in West End and ended after running into Drowning Creek.
A “very dry and very windy” weather combination fueled that incident. But if such conditions arose today, Wimberley said there would be burn bans placed.
Contact Ana Risano at (910) 585-6396 or ana@thepilot.com.
