There are few things that are absolutely critical before lighting a prescribed fire. One is the proper wind direction, and another is the right lift, a shorthand way of describing the correct atmospheric pressure to allow smoke a quick exit off a burn unit and into the sky. In November, I saw both of those environmental factors working in unison as a thick sepia cloud billowed off of the top of Haystack Mountain on State Game Lands 207 in Fairview Township.

Two days prior to the completion of the project, I had arrived on SGL 207 after twelve acres had been burned following a late start to the operation. I drove slowly down the gravel service road and approached two Pennsylvania Game Commission employees, “babysitting” the fire as they said, looking for “smokers on the ground”, potential bits of small flare-ups that can follow a prescribed burn.

As I chatted with the techs, Ryan Gildea, Game Warden and Land Management Group Supervisor for the Northeast Region of the PGC pulled up to check on the scene and touch base with the employees monitoring the site.

I was lucky for the opportunity to press Gildea on some of the main objectives of this particular burn, and learned that one important goal was to enhance growing conditions for rarer plants such as wild blue lupine, Susquehanna sand cherry, and three-toothed cinquefoil, which all presently grow. on SGL 207. It is the PGC’s aim to preserve those plant communities and expand their range with the use of fire. Gildea noted that these species of plants benefit from fire, as well as the oak forest they are growing in.

Gildea explained that the over-story of the forest canopy is encroaching on this rocky ridge top and causing stressful competition for the rarer, fire resilient plants. Gildea said that black birch was a main target species for this low-intensity burn. The method he described as top-kill on these trees will stunt or kill them in order to reduce the pressure they impose on the forest understory.

Fire crews face particular challenges depending on the time of year a prescribed burn is being conducted. In the fall season, morning frost needs to dry off before crews can begin successful hand ignition. That, coupled with shorter days, prohibits long working days.

John Wakefield, acting Burn Boss on the Haystack Mountain burn, and PA Game Commission Fire Program Manager, said that because of the burn site’s location between the two high population centers of Mountain Top and Wilkes-Barre, conditions had to be especially right in order to carry out the operation safely and efficiently in the fall season.

Wakefield noted that timing is critical with a burn on a site like SGL 207. Fire crews need the right wind, and the right lift in order to properly clear smoke into the upper atmosphere as the fire is progressing. Smoke management is a big safety concern.

“We try to be good neighbors and responsibly manage the property,” Wakefield said. “People will see and smell smoke, but it’s only for a few hours. We’re going to have a good habitat product out here that will last for many years.”

Wakefield said that the burn unit on Haystack Mountain is on a three to five year rotation of prescribed burning in order to maintain a healthy ecosystem.

“Fire is a great tool for Oak forest management,” Wakefield said. “We’re targeting thin-barked species like Black Birch and Maple, we’re looking to cook some sap on those small stems so that their energy stores are depleted,” Wakefield said.

Wakefiled also noted that wildlife favor forest conditions after prescribed burns are conducted.

Marc Sechrist, Game Commission Maintenance Supervisor and acting Squad Boss for the Haystack Mountain burn, noted that this burn unit was about 118 acres in size.

“We wouldn’t consider this a large burn,” Sechrist said, studying an aerial photo of the burn unit as we chatted about the site in the middle of the forest road. He communicated with his crews over a radio while he discussed some of the challenges that he faced for the day. Sechrist noted that one particular seasonal challenge includes clearing the burn site of hunters that may be out utilizing game land property where the burn will be conducted.

“We ran into that issue this morning,” Sechrist said.

After Sechrist left me for other workday obligations, I watched Firing Squad member Dylan Roeder as he worked his way south about fifty yards above the edge of the service road that runs parallel to route 309. A flame danced on the edge of his drip torch as he ambled over the leaf litter and coarse woody debris, dowsing the forest floor periodically every few yards with fire. Like Sechrist, he communicated to other members of the fire crew over a radio. He made his way to the crest of Haystack Mountain, and I lost sight of him as he gained the ridge and proceeded deeper into the woods to the west. In his wake, the forest floor he passed over was ablaze, and heavy gray smoke lifted in shafts towards the sky. Other firing squad crew members followed the fire along the service road in an off-road utility vehicle, monitoring its progression.

According to Isabella Petitta, a graduate research fellow at Pennsylvania State University, the small wild blue lupine community on SGL 207 is under threat of forest succession due to the recent lack of human and natural disturbance. This is one of the driving forces behind utilizing fire as habitat management tool in this unit.

“Prescribed burns are a little bit taboo, so we are lucky that we have land managers that are very excited about the ecological effects of fire,” Petitta said.  

Lupine is also a keystone feature in the landscape for specific pollinators as well. In fact, the connection between lupine and pollinators is the focus of Petitta’s research.

“Bees are the primary pollinator of lupine,” Petitta said. 

Wild lupine is a legume, so even though it is capable of self pollinating, research has shown that cross pollination between plants increases seed production. For this reason, pollinator colonies provide a very important ecosystem service in wild lupine habitats.

Petitta has made other fascinating observations too, particularly about one morphological relationship that wild lupine flowers share with one of its primary pollinators, the Mason bee (genus Osmia).

According to Peitta, the mason bee carries its pollen collecting hairs on its stomach, unlike other bees that carry them on their front legs. The lupine flower houses its reproductive organs in a structure known as the keel, which resembles the shape of a sickle. Because of the location of the pollen collecting hairs on the mason bee’s stomach, combined with the shape of the keel in the lupine flower, Mason bees are very efficient at pollinating lupine when they land on the keel.

“It looks like a puzzle piece,” Petitta said.

Another primary pollinator of wild lupine is the Bumblebee queen. Bumblebees are ground nesters, and Petitta’s research observations have pointed towards the conclusion that fire has no negative effects on the Bumblebee populations. According to Petitta, Bumblebees prefer dry, sandy soil for their nests, and because fire enhances bare mineral ground, the correlation between prescribed fire and good pollinator populations seems promising.

Petitta also mentioned that because lupine is a early flowering perennial, it allows Bumblebee queens the ability to collect large amounts of pollen early in the season in order to strengthen the numbers of their colony. This has a positive effect on all flora serviced by the pollinator colony. Plants like blackberry and blueberry, common in these habitats where Oak and wild Lupine are found, all benefit from the critical connection of pollinators, wild lupine, and fire.

According to Kelly Sitch, a botanist with the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry, fire was a tool used by Native Americans for managing habitat along their travel corridors. It was also distributed throughout the landscape from major industries like logging and coal mining in northeastern Pennsylvania. Especially along railroad corridors, fire was a common occurrence from sparks thrown from the narrow gauge rail that trains traveled along a hundred or more years ago carrying timber, coal and even ice.

Fire, natural or anthropogenic, has been a part of the landscape’s story for years in this region, but lately it has been occurring less due to the absence of those cultures and industry. Which is one reason the landscape is returning back to late successional stages in many places like on Haystack Mountain.

“We want to actively manage our rare plant species,” Sitch said. “Not just put a fence around them and walk away. Particularly for these species that need these habitats.”

According to Sitch, Haystack Mountain has been managed under the PGC’s Fire Program for several years now.

“There are rare species there. We felt confident, given the research, that these species would be favorable to prescribed fire. Perhaps there’s a seed bank here that we can release,” Sitch said.