Wildfires threatened endangered species found only in two counties

When wildfires erupted in South Georgia last month, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources was one of several state agencies that pitched in to fight them. The DNR sent heavy equipment and a couple dozen staffers to strengthen the fire lines, said Matt Elliott, Chief, Wildlife Conservation at the Wildlife Resources Division.

Along with protecting people and property they’re keeping an eye out for rare species, especially a plant called the hairy rattleweed.

“It’s like a wild indigo, and it is endemic to Brantley and Wayne counties,” he said. “It’s the only place in the world that it’s found.”

The hairy rattleweed is federally listed as endangered. Native to pine flatwoods it’s a perennial that gets its name from its cobweb-like hairs and seed pods that rustle when dry.

One of the known populations of the plant is located near the northern edge of the Highway 82 fire, which burned 22,000 acres, but by Tuesday was 85% contained. DNR crews sought to protect those populations, not from the fire itself, but from the fire suppression efforts.

As a native of long leaf pine forests that once covered much of the Southeast, hairy fireweed evolved to survive occasional fires. But because the Highway 82 fire was fed by farmed pine trees that are tightly spaced for maximum production, the fire burned hotter than it would in a natural long leaf forest.

“(The hairy rattleweed) is very much fire adapted, but I don’t know about fires that are quite that hot,” Elliott said. “I saw a picture where it melted some railroad tracks.”

Still, if fire had reached the plants it probably would have knocked it back for this year but not killed it, Elliott suspects.

Crews focused instead on protecting the rare plants from fire plows.

“So as they’re strengthening the lines, we’re making sure they don’t put a plow break right over where the endangered plants are,” Elliott said.

The process involves the use of a tractor and a specialized forest plow to create a firebreak of exposed soil. 

That plow could kill hairy rattleweed, which tends to grow in concentrated areas, said Jason Lee, deputy executive director of The Nature Conservancy in Georgia, which owns the Longbranch preserve in the area.

“They are very fire-adapted but not fire-plow adapted,” he said.

Managing with fire

The Longbranch tract is managed with fire, and so The Nature Conservancy was not worried about the wildfire spreading within it.   

“It has pre-installed firebreaks, and any wildfire, even in a drought, would burn low to the ground, not reaching canopy height, as the fuels are grassy and have only accumulated for a year, instead of 10-50 years (since the last clear cut) of accumulated fuel in the surrounding industrial forestry lands,” Lee wrote in an email.   

Lee said more tracts managed with frequent fire would mitigate the risk of catastrophic wildfires.

“When drought strikes, these pine forests that have accumulated needles for years become something akin to dynamite, as pine needles are resinous, and a lot of the shrubs and undergrowth of south Georgia pine forests are highly flammable.  When it is dry enough, these kinds of fires are nearly unstoppable especially if there is any wind,” he wrote.

“I believe we should manage these areas accordingly, with drought and wildfire potential in mind, especially when infrastructure such as homes are nearby.”

Another rare species

Gopher tortoises are another protected species in the area. This species, the official state reptile of Georgia, digs its own protection from fire in the sandy soil of pine uplands, sandhills, and scrub habitats.

“There’s gopher tortoises scattered through all the ridges in there, and you can see them in people’s yards,” Elliott said. “Brantley County is quite a few good for tortoises.”

Elliott expects that these tortoises probably hunkered down in their underground burrows — typically more than 6 feet deep — to survive the wildfires.

These deep, long burrows are also home to indigo snakes, which are federally listed as threatened, and for hundreds of other animal species.

In a wildfire, those burrows function like a shelter for “snakes, mice and other critters,” Lee said.

Once the fire is extinguished, DNR staffers will look for signs of gopher tortoise survival.

“As things settle down more, we can look and see if roadside burrows are being refreshed and things like that,” Elliott said.

The gopher tortoise is federally listed as threatened in Louisiana, Mississippi and western Alabama. Throughout the rest of its range, including in Georgia, the tortoise is protected by state law.

Birds and mammals, including deer, are often able to flee a wildfire. The death of some animals like the deer pictured above speak to the speed and intensity of the Highway 82 fire, Elliott said. More common mammal species will likely repopulate the area quickly, he noted.

The Tide brings regular notes and observations on news and events by The Current GA staff.