Stephen F. Austin State University

A crowd gathered Tuesday at the Piney Woods Native Plant Center to watch flames consume an acre of underbrush as white smoke drifted through the air.

Firefighters hosed down a wooden bridge and the periphery of the area selected for a controlled burn.

Students at Raguet Elementary school lined up along the fence and asked, “Are they doing that on purpose?” “Why?” And, “When will the fire go out?”

Elyce Rodewald, educational coordinator for the Mast Arboretum and Piney Woods Native Plant Center, was there to answer their questions.

“Yes, the fire was set on purpose,” she said, and elaborated on the reasons why.

Wildfires are often used to maintain ecosystems, and by burning the underbrush at the Piney Woods Native Plant Center, wildflowers and other native flora will now be able to thrive.

“Actually, we’d like to do this every year,” Dr. David Creech, regents professor of agriculture said. “This is a process that occurred naturally long before this area was settled by our ancestors. Fires were a natural process and much more extensive, mainly set by Indians to improve hunting, or lightning strikes. Fires, once ignited, were unhampered except when they rolled into wet stream bottoms.

The marsh area at the Piney Woods Native Plant Center has been burned twice in years past. Last year, the area was not burned due to drought conditions.

The Texas Forest Service and the Nacogdoches Fire Department assisted with the burn. Master gardeners and students of horticulture and forestry classes were among those who gathered to observe.

“We think this is an excellent educational opportunity for the public,” Creech said. “We want the community to understand that fire ecology is a natural process. It’s important to realize that in our Pineywoods region fire suprression efforts over a long period of time can create a massive buildup of litter and brush that can lead to mega-fires.”

A similar burn was organized in Houston a couple of years ago, in the area of the 610 Loop, Creech said. Public schools brought students, the media covered the event, and helicopters got footage of the 30-acre controlled burn.

“Maybe some day we’ll do something like that here,” Creech said.

Dr. David Kulhavy, forestry professor, brought one of his classes to observe.

“We’re studying the before and after effects of fire on the health of trees,” he said.

Deputy Fire Chief Robert Templin said the experience was valuable for firefighters, who received “a little training (Tuesday) on controlling brush fires.”

Paula Hand, a teacher at Raguet, said her students saw what was happening through the window of her classroom and went outside to get a better look.

“We were inside studying desert food webs,” she said. “Then, we saw an opportunity to go outside, in our own backyard, to watch the management of an ecosystem.”

Hand said her class has visited the Piney Woods Native Plant Center two or three times this year, and they had discussed the possibility of a controlled burn and what it meant.