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Stories in Virginia

Fired Up at Piney Grove

A record setting controlled burn aims to restore longleaf pine forests and support habitat for the red-cockaded woodpecker.

By Daniel White, Senior Conservation Writer | June 01, 2017 | Last updated August 21, 2022

Profile view of a man resting during a controlled burn. He is wearing yellow fire gear and a red hard hat. His hands rest on the handle of a shovel. A low fire burns behind him along a fire line.
Monitoring the Fire Line An AmeriCorps crew member watches the fire line during a controlled burn at Piney Grove Preserve, Sussex Co., Virginia. © Daniel White / TNC
Candid photo of Senior Conservation Writer Daniel White. A man sits in a yellow kayak holding a paddle. He is looking up into the trees. The kayak is sitting in the open water of a cypress swamp.
Daniel White Senior Conservation Writer

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Traffic is heavier than usual this morning at Piney Grove Preserve. In other words, there’s a truck ahead of me on the unpaved road winding through the forest in Sussex County. I turn off to follow a cloud of dust through an open gate and then along a narrow lane.

Parking, too, is more challenging than usual. I squeeze into a line of trucks shouldering the lane as it funnels into a small clearing fronting a building. More trucks, trailers and all-terrain vehicles are soon tucked into every space between two pines.

Inside the hangar-like structure, Bobby Clontz occupies a corner office. In fact, it’s the only office. At 9:00 a.m., various milling groups form a rough circle, and Bobby introduces himself for the benefit of any first-timers: “I’m the preserve manager here at Piney Grove, and I’ll be leading the burn today.”

In the hours ahead, fire crews on the ground and in the sky will attempt to burn more than 1,800 acres owned by The Nature Conservancy and the state. If successful, today’s controlled burn will be the largest ever ignited at Piney Grove—helping restore a threatened species and its globally rare forest home.

Fired Up

Scenes from Piney Grove's record breaking controlled burn.

Preserve manager Bobby Clontz leads the briefing before the start of a controlled burn. A man wearing yellow fire gear stands in front of a large map showing burn areas within the preserve.
In the foreground a low fire burns in green vegetation at the edge of a wide, sandy path. A man walks along the path in the background.
A man in a yellow shirt and red hard hat stands outside holding a walkie-talkie. He is dwarfed by the tall pine trees that rise around him.
A man in a yellow shirt stands next to a red fire engine checking the equipment. Other fire professionals stand together in the background next to an all terrain vehicle.
Two women stand together in a forest. They are each looking up through binoculars into the trees. Tall pine trees rise behind them.
A man stands on a tarmac gesturing as he talks. The tail rotor of a helicopter is blurred in the background.
Three people huddle around an orange sack. One person holds the sack open while a second empties a clear plastic bag full of gray spheres into the sack.
Two photos combined together into one image. Selfies taken by a woman and a man from the inside a helicopter. They are each wearing white helmets.
Thick smoke fills a forest, silhouetting tree trunks in black against brownish-gray light.
A man wearing sunglasses and a soot streaked yellow shirt sits and rests at the end of a controlled burn.
Preserve manager Bobby Clontz leads the briefing before the start of a controlled burn. A man wearing yellow fire gear stands in front of a large map showing burn areas within the preserve.

Prepping the Teams: TNC Stewardship and Fire Manager Bobby Clontz leads the morning briefing prior to the start of a controlled burn at Piney Grove Preserve. © Daniel White / TNC

In the foreground a low fire burns in green vegetation at the edge of a wide, sandy path. A man walks along the path in the background.

Good Fire: Longleaf pine is a fire adapted species. It depends on fire to reveal bare mineral soil, stimulate seed germination and reduce competition from faster-growing tree species. © Kyle LaFerriere

A man in a yellow shirt and red hard hat stands outside holding a walkie-talkie. He is dwarfed by the tall pine trees that rise around him.

Piney Grove: Burn boss Bobby Clontz at Piney Grove Preserve. © Kyle LaFerriere

A man in a yellow shirt stands next to a red fire engine checking the equipment. Other fire professionals stand together in the background next to an all terrain vehicle.

Checking Equipment: John Kirk (Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries) checks equipment. DGIF was one of five partner agencies taking part in the controlled burn at Piney Grove. © Kyle LaFerriere

Two women stand together in a forest. They are each looking up through binoculars into the trees. Tall pine trees rise behind them.

Ground Observations: Virginia state director Locke Ogens (l.) and Senior Scientist Judy Dunscomb (r.) observe red-cockaded woodpecker cavity trees prior to the burn teams moving into the unit. © Kyle LaFerriere

A man stands on a tarmac gesturing as he talks. The tail rotor of a helicopter is blurred in the background.

Aerial Ignition: HeloAir pilot Whit Baldwin prior to liftoff. © Kyle LaFerriere

Three people huddle around an orange sack. One person holds the sack open while a second empties a clear plastic bag full of gray spheres into the sack.

Loading the PSD: Plastic spheres containing potassium permaganate are injected with glycol before being released from the helicopter. The chemical reaction ignites fuels on the ground. © Kyle LaFerriere

Two photos combined together into one image. Selfies taken by a woman and a man from the inside a helicopter. They are each wearing white helmets.

Piney Grove: TNC's Nikole Simmons and Sam Lindblom snap selfies from the air. © Nikole Simmons, Sam Lindblom / TNC

Thick smoke fills a forest, silhouetting tree trunks in black against brownish-gray light.

Piney Grove: Light filters through the smoke during the largest ever controlled burn ignited at Piney Grove Preserve. © Kyle LaFerriere

A man wearing sunglasses and a soot streaked yellow shirt sits and rests at the end of a controlled burn.

Piney Grove: Volunteer Tim Craig at the end of the day's burn activities. © Kyle LaFerriere

Nearly 40 fire team members from TNC and an alphabet soup of agencies will collaborate on today’s burn.

Participating partners include the Virginia departments of Conservation and Recreation (Natural Heritage Program), Wildlife Resources and Forestry, as well as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The service is also overseeing a team of young AmeriCorps volunteers. 

Two photos combined to create a single image showing women participating in a controlled burn, walking together through a forest and listening during a morning briefing.
Piney Grove AmeriCorps crew members arrive at Piney Grove; the Conservancy's Laurel Schablein listens to the morning briefing. © Kyle LaFerriere

This level of collaboration wasn't reached overnight. Back in the early 2000s, Virginia’s last few red-cockaded woodpeckers were clinging to survival at TNC's newly established Piney Grove Preserve. The challenge facing this endangered species was the near-disappearance of its pine savanna habitat.

Years of fire suppression had allowed the formerly open, grassy pine forest to become overgrown and made the woodpeckers more vulnerable to predators. Red-cockaded woodpeckers evolved in concert with and now depend on pine savannas. This habitat evolved over many centuries as lightning strikes and Native American burning made fire a regular part of the landscape. Its rich diversity of native grasses, wildflowers and trees—flame-resistant longleaf pine seedlings, in particular—also depends on fire to stimulate seed germination and reduce competition.

TNC and our partners have worked together since 1999 to return fire to this landscape. For this forest, especially for 177 acres of recently planted longleaf, today's burn will be like receiving a spa treatment and cocktail of vitamins.

A sign at Big Woods State Forest. The shield shaped sign is painted red and reads, "Big Wood State Forest" in white letters. A illustration of green trees is painted at the bottom.
Big Woods State Forest Big Woods State Forest, Big Woods Wildlife Management Area and Piney Grove Preserve together protect more than 7,500 acres of critical forest habitat. © Daniel White / TNC

Since TNC established Piney Grove, our preserve has more than doubled to its present 3,200 acres. We've also worked with the state to protect additional habitat at Big Woods State Forest and Big Woods Wildlife Management Area. This combined conservation area gives the woodpeckers more than 7,500 acres to roam.

Along with land protection comes a shared commitment to repeated controlled burning, which is required to achieve and maintain the desired habitat. Today's burn will be almost evenly divided between state and TNC lands. 

A white helicopter lifts off from a small airport. The pilot and three passengers are visible through the windows.
Piney Grove Virginia State Director Locke Ogens joins reconnaissance flight from Wakefield Municipal Airport. © Kyle LaFerriere

After reviewing the burn plan and topics ranging from the weather forecast to safety precautions, Bobby ends the briefing. The three ground divisions meet briefly to go over assignments and check equipment. Crews then disperse from the work station to travel to their stations, with a goal of igniting test fires within the hour.

I head for the Wakefield Municipal Airport to rendezvous with the aerial-ignition team, arriving shortly before their helicopter touches down from a reconnaissance flight. Several colleagues from Charlottesville emerge, including (former) state director Locke Ogens, who is getting a bird's-eye view of this massive restoration project.

Two photos combined to create a single image. On the left, a person wearing a yellow shirt holds out their hand, showing a small gray ball. On the right, two people carry a large metal container.
Prepping for Ignition The Conservancy's Sam Lindblom and Nikole Simmons prepare PSD (plastic sphere dispenser) used for aerial ignition. © Kyle LaFerriere

TNC's Sam Lindblom and Nikole Simmons give us a quick primer on the equipment they’ll be using for aerial ignition. “We’re service providers for the folks on the ground,” says Sam. As Bobby’s ground crews create ample black space along the boundaries, Sam works with the pilot to fill in the interior.

Nikole, meanwhile, keeps "as busy as a short-order cook,” feeding the PSD (plastic sphere dispenser) at the appropriate rate. The machine activates and spits out chemically treated spheres resembling ping-pong balls.

Upon landing, each sphere bursts into a small ball of flame. “Picture lighting a single sheet of balled-up newspaper,” Sam explains. 

A woman uses a drip torch at a controlled burn. A woman wearing yellow fire gear and a red hard hat walks through a forest carrying red canister. Smoke rises behind her from a low fire.
Starting Ignition An AmeriCorps crew member uses a drip torch for ignition during a controlled burn at Piney Grove Preserve. © Kyle LaFerriere
× A woman uses a drip torch at a controlled burn. A woman wearing yellow fire gear and a red hard hat walks through a forest carrying red canister. Smoke rises behind her from a low fire.
A man wearing a yellow shirt and red hard hat drives a small fire truck. The open sided all terrain vehicle contains hose and water tanks.
Monitoring the Fire Lines Zach Bradford (Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation). DCR was one of five partner agencies taking part in the controlled burn at Piney Grove. © Kyle LaFerriere
× A man wearing a yellow shirt and red hard hat drives a small fire truck. The open sided all terrain vehicle contains hose and water tanks.
Starting Ignition An AmeriCorps crew member uses a drip torch for ignition during a controlled burn at Piney Grove Preserve. © Kyle LaFerriere
Monitoring the Fire Lines Zach Bradford (Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation). DCR was one of five partner agencies taking part in the controlled burn at Piney Grove. © Kyle LaFerriere

With word that the ground crews are progressing nicely, I head back to Piney Grove. The closest action involves a mixed team of agency staff and AmeriCorps members, using drip torches to ignite a roughly 20-yard buffer along the fire line. 

Most of the proverbial boots on the ground are engaged in watching and patrolling. Crew members armed with rakes called pulaskis keep the fire at their backs, scanning for any stray embers that might land on the wrong side of the fire break.

Others drive the lines in trucks and all-terrain vehicles equipped with water tanks and hoses, extinguishing any flames threatening to escape. 

A wetland at Piney Grove Preserve. Yellow flowers on tall, slender stems rise out of a shallow wetland area lined with tall trees.
Piney Grove Wetland at Piney Grove Preserve, Sussex Co., Virginia. © Daniel White / TNC

The burn crews still have at least two hours of labor ahead as I turn back, hoping to beat the all-too-real traffic through Richmond. I will learn the following day that they succeeded in burning 1,830 acres, the single largest burn here to date.

But at the moment, as I always do before leaving Piney Grove, I pull over to the roadside to walk along the edge of a beautiful wetland. I’m here for the scenery, of course, but also appreciate the amazing work that wetlands do as nature’s water filters.

For the red-cockaded woodpecker, Piney Grove and Big Woods are home. But they mean so much more. The soughing of the wind through the pines overhead reconnects us to our history and—if we listen closely—to our humanity.

Across the water, I hear a burn crew pass and watch a gauze of smoke signal their advance. The smoke lifts almost as soon as it appears, and a near-silence once again descends upon the swamp.

Take a Closer Look

An open pine savanna of tall, widely spaced pine trees with a low understory of thick ferns.

Piney Grove Preserve

Piney Grove Preserve provides habitat for the northernmost population of the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.

The bushy top of a longleaf pine seedling in its bottle-brush stage rises up through tall, red grass. The trunks of mature pines fill the background.

Longleaf Pine: Restoring an Icon

Restoring longleaf pine forests, returning fire to the landscape and supporting habitat for Virginia's rarest bird.

Late afternoon sunlight filters through tall pine trees illuminating a patch of tall grasses and flowering purple plants.

Virginia Pinelands Program

Protecting centuries-old cypress swamps, the state's rarest bird and iconic longleaf savannas.

Candid photo of Senior Conservation Writer Daniel White. A man sits in a yellow kayak holding a paddle. He is looking up into the trees. The kayak is sitting in the open water of a cypress swamp.

Daniel White is the senior conservation writer for The Nature Conservancy in Virginia, highlighting hidden gems and covering the chapter's work across the commonwealth.

More About Daniel White