Good Article I ran across in the Anniston Star about the necessity of fire to conserve our natural longleaf pine habitat.

by Jason Bacaj
Star Staff Writer

Anniston Star

Oct 17, 2010

COLEMAN LAKE — Long shadows cast by the morning sun dappled the loblolly pine glen as a U.S. Forest Service biologist described the Talladega National Forest’s northern district to a group of hikers about to embark on a five-hour trip along the Pinhoti Trail.  What’s now known as Shoal Creek Ranger District was mostly uninhabited before it was bought by the government in 1936, as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s effort to conserve America’s forests, said biologist Jonathan Stober. It’s an ecosystem heavily influenced by naturally occurring fires: When more of that type of blaze occurred, longleaf pines thrived. The ecosystem changed as wildfires were controlled, allowing the loblolly pines to supplant the iconic — but slow-growing — longleaf as the area’s dominant tree species.