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Site Description
Project Overview
Project Objectives
Project Location
Treatments
Monitoring
Contact Info


 

Long Island Central Pine Barrens of New York:

Forest Fuel Reduction Demonstration Project

Description of the Central Pine Barrens

Suffolk county, New York's southeastern-most county, occupies the eastern end of Long Island and comprises over 900 square miles of terrestrial and marine environments. Three of Suffolk County's ten townships are host to the 100,000+ acre, New York State designated region known as the Central Pine Barrens (CPB).

A rich concoction of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, interconnected surface and ground waters, recreational niches, historic locales, farmlands, and residential communities, this region contains the largest remnant of a forest thought to have once encompassed over a quarter million acres on Long Island. 

For additional information on the Central Pine Barrens, click here to visit The Nature Conservancy's web page.

Overview of CPB Fuel Reduction Demonstration Project

The Nature Conservancy and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation have received a National Fire Plan grant to create a demonstration site in the Long Island Central Pine Barrens. Treatments are scheduled to begin in 2005. The information for this web page comes primarily from the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) project description and from communications with Brian Kurtz, Fire Management Specialist for The Nature Conservancy, Long Island Chapter. To download the entire SEQRA project description, click here. (200 KB pdf)

The Pitch Pine, oak, and ericaceous shrub-dominated forests of the Long Island Central Pine Barrens represent an extremely volatile fuel type with a long history of severe fires. Coupled with a dense human population and decades of extensive development, the Central Pine Barrens present a significant wildland-urban interface hazard. These fire-dependent barrens are also an important habitat for a variety of rare, threatened, and endangered plant and insect species.

In 1995, the Central Pine Barrens Commission formed a Wildfire Task Force to develop a coordinated approach to fire management. The Wildfire Task Force has identified the need to begin a proactive approach to managing forest fuels through ecologically compatible mechanical treatments and prescribed fires.

Prescribed fire is a relatively new and unfamiliar tool for land managers, decision-makers, and the general public on Long Island. To date, forest fuel treatments on Long Island have been limited in variation and scope. In order for prescribed fire or mechanical fuel reduction techniques to be applied at a meaningful scale, local demonstration projects are needed for public education and as a learning opportunity for land managers to observe first-hand the results of different management.

Accordingly, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and The Nature Conservancy have jointly proposed a demonstration project within a portion of the David Sarnoff Preserve. The project entails two major goals: the use of various combinations of prescribed fire and mechanical treatments to reduce the likelihood and severity of wildfires and to provide for ecological restoration at the same time. The proposed activities will establish a 350-acre fire management demonstration site within the Long Island Central Pine Barrens.

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Project Objectives

  1. Reduce fuel loading
  2. Break continuity of canopy fuels to reduce potential for crown fire
  3. Reduce ladder fuels
  4. Reduce the average age and decadent structure of the vegetation
  5. Reduce hazards to development on the north and east sides of Sarnoff Preserve
  6. Increase nutrition and palatability of vegetation for pine barrens species
  7. Increase training and experience of Long Island interagency prescribed fire and wildfire suppression crew.
  8. Create an interpretive site to study from and learn about a variety of fuels management treatments.

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Project Location

The Sarnoff Preserve, east of Hwy 104/105 is located in the eastern portion of the Central Pine Barrens, south of Riverhead and north of Sunrise Highway (see map, below). This site is representative of vegetation community types and structures found throughout the Central Pine Barrens.

General Location map of the Demonstration site at the David A. Sarnoff Preserve

General location map of the National Fire Plan demonstration site at the
David Sarnoff Preserve in eastern Long Island.

Click on the map to view a larger image.


Six community types can describe most of the vegetation composition and structure within the project boundaries. Vegetation communities represented include: Pitch Pine Scrub Oak Woodland, Tree Oak Pitch Pine Scrub Oak Woodland, Pitch Pine Scrub Oak Forest, Pitch Pine Tree Oak Forest, Tree Oak Pitch Pine Forest, and Pitch Pine Forest. For a detailed description of each type, click here. These are fire-adapted communities that require fire to successfully reproduce and maintain critical pine barrens wildlife forage and habitat. In the absence of fire, fuels (both live and dead vegetation) build up and habitat degrades.

The map at the right depicts the Vegetation Community Types and the identification number each stand has been assigned. Click on the map to view a larger image. Map Source: NYSOFT, The Nature Conservancy, NYS DEC. © The Nature Conservancy, 01/10/05.

 

 

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Treatments

Fuels reduction will be achieved by mechanical treatments, by mechanical treatments followed by prescribed fire, and by prescribed fire alone. Mechanical treatments may include the creation of shaded fuel breaks, selective tree removal, pruning or removal of ladder fuels, and cutting/mowing of shrub species. Prescribed fire will reduce dead, downed surface fuels and remove ladder fuels.

Map of the treatment units at the Sarnoff Preserve. Click on the map to view a larger image.


Both mechanical and prescribed fire treatments will occur throughout the calendar year provided that fuels and weather conditions contained within approved burn plan prescriptions are met. To read treatment prescriptions by vegetation community type, click here (12KB pdf).

A contractor may be hired to accomplish the majority of mechanical treatments under the supervision of project staff (DEC/TNC). Heavy equipment and machinery such as a brush-hog, hydro-axe, feller-buncher, skidder, plows, chainsaws, etc. may be used to accomplish mechanical treatment and control line construction. Click on the map at the right to view a larger image and see proposed treatments.

Mechanical treatments are scheduled to begin
by August 2005.

Pre- and post-treatment monitoring protocols are being developed and will be implemented to enable the project to measure its success.

 

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Monitoring

Pre-and post-treatment monitoring procedures at the Sarnoff preserve can be divided into two main categories: those measuring progress towards Ecological Goals and those measuring Fuels Reduction. The goals for each are outlined below. Goals will vary by treatment unit depending on existing conditions and the desired management outcome. Not all goals will apply to all units.

Ecological Goals:

  1. Improve Lepidopteron habitat (Increase number of young scrub oak stems)
  2. Increase herbaceous vegetation diversity and total cover (create patches of bare ground in dense scrub oak, stimulate herbaceous layer in forested community types)
  3. Pitch pine seedling recruitment (limited extent, for demonstration purposes only--Expose mineral soil, release seed).
  4. Tree oak recruitment (limited extent for demonstration purposes only--reduce thickness of duff layer, selectively top kill or remove canopy for increased light penetration).
  5. Create scrub oak woodland community type (Decrease cover of pitch pine and oak trees to <60% in some closed canopy areas).
  6. Retain or increase existing bird, reptile, and amphibian diversity and abundance

To measure progress towards ecological goals, stands within the demonstration will be sampled before and after mechanical and/or prescribed fire treatments. A GIS grid of monitoring points was assigned to each stand (see map, below). A representative number of points within each stand are randomly selected, located with a GPS unit, and sampled via relevés to record changes in the structure and diversity of vegetation.

To read the relevé sampling procedures and view the datasheet, click here. (45KB pdf)

Fuel Reduction Goals:

  1. Reduce crown fire potential : Reduce pitch pine cover to less than (60%), reduce surface and ladder fuels
  2. Reduce fire rate of spread : Reduce surface fuels, reduce scrub oak height and biomass
  3. Direct the release of emissions from fire (smoke) to avoid significant impacts to sensitive receptors.

To measure fuels reduction, stands within the demonstration will be sampled before and after mechanical and/or prescribed fire treatments. Stands were selected that approximate the dominant vegetation types of the forest (see Vegetation Community Types map, above).

A GIS grid of monitoring points was assigned to each stand (see map, right). Each point is 100 ft from any other point and at least 75 feet from the stand's edge. A representative number of points within each stand are randomly selected, located with a GPS unit, and sampled to quantify fuel loads and depths within the stand.

The following fuel sampling methods are employed at each monitoring point: Brown's Downed Woody Fuel Lines (for characterizing fuel depths and 100- and 1000-hr slash loads), 40x40cm2 Harvest Plots (for non-scrub-oak shrub loads and 1- and 10-hr slash loads), Scrub Oak 1x1m talleys (for calculating scrub oak loads), and Variable Radius Plots (for quantifying basal area of each stand). To read the Fuels sampling procedures and download datasheets, click here. (59KB pdf)

The map at the right depicts the Vegetation Community Types and the grid of monitoring points each stand has been assigned. Click on the map to view a larger image. Map Source: NYSOFT, The Nature Conservancy, NYS DEC. © The Nature Conservancy, 01/10/05.

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Contacts for more information about work on Long Island

Brian Kurtz
Fire Management Specialist
TNC-Long Island
250 Lawrence Hill Rd.
Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724
bkurtz@tnc.org

Bill Patterson IV
Conservation Project Director
TNC-Long Island
250 Lawrence Hill Rd.
Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724
wpatterson@tnc.org

Marilyn Jordan
Conservation Scientist
TNC-Long Island
250 Lawrence Hill Rd.
Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724
mjordan@tnc.org

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