Delaware Avenue: Interpretive Trail

You will find interpretative posts along both sides of the unimproved Delaware Avenue road and near the edge of its surrounding forests.

Start at the northern most post labeled with the letter 鈥淎鈥 and scan the targets on the posts to access web informational pages. They will help you learn some details about the forests here and how managing fire plays an important and positive role in the ecosystems鈥 health, safety, resiliency, and biodiversity. Proceed south and you will work from one side to the other in a loop until you wind up at the final post lettered 鈥淚鈥 back near the beginning. The entire loop is under 0.4 miles.

We hope this trail, its web pages and additional links will help you understand some aspects of our Pinelands forest fire ecology, define some basic fire terms, and showcase some of 黑料社鈥檚 faculty and student long-term research. We also hope the trail and web site will give you insight into how fire can used as part of a comprehensive ecological forest management plan鈥揳s we have here at 黑料社鈥搕o make our forests safer, more diverse, and resilient.

DELAWARE AVENUE FOREST INTERPRETATIVE TRAIL STOP A

Trail Stop A

 The last prescribed fire on Delaware avenue forests (before the SFMP) was in 2005 (south side) and 2006 (north side).

Fire AreaClick here to view Delaware Avenue Introduction video

DELAWARE AVENUE FOREST INTERPRETATIVE TRAIL STOP B

B trail stop

In front of you (facing Post B) is one of the three replicates of the 2-3 year fire interval treatments. Behind you across Delaware Avenue is one of the replicates of the 1-2 two year (or shortest) fire interval treatment in this experiment.

When the experiment started in 2015, the entire 60 acre area was burned to set all treatments at the same starting point. In 2016 and again in 2017 the 1-2 year areas have been and will be burned (we hope to do so every year into the foreseeable future). However, the 2-3 year areas were burned in 2017 and will not be burned again for two years.  Since we cannot guarantee a burn every year (as you will learn later), we have an 鈥渆xtra year鈥 added in each treatment name (鈥1-2鈥, 鈥2-3鈥, 鈥3-4鈥, etc.).

 

Here is a movie of the 1-2 year treatment prescribed burn done of February 28th 2016:

 

So can you see anything happening in the 2-3 or especially the 1-2 two year treatments yet?

We believe the short time fire intervals will favor species like pine and grasses and thick barked or older specimens who are best adapted to fire, while less adapted species or individuals will die. In the southern United States, short time fire return intervals can produce pine savannahs with understories of grass that host their own unique species.

Pine Savannah Tall Timbers (Bob Williams)

Tall Timbers

Pine savannah, Pine Valley New Jersey (Bob Williams)

Pine Valley

 

In the stops ahead, we will explain more of how prescribed burns are done, some fire "basics", and the research we are doing.

DELAWARE AVENUE FOREST INTERPRETATIVE TRAIL STOP C

C trail stop

As you face post C you will see one of three replicates of the 4-5 year fire interval treatments. Like all treatments it was burned at the beginning of this experiment in 2015, but is not scheduled to be burned again for at least 4 years (in the year 2019).

Some fire basics:

Fire is as important to some forest ecosystems as rain is to some Amazonian forests. Unfortunately in America, a catastrophic fire in 1910 called the  and subsequent public reaction caused America to char