Nature and culture along a knife-edge of flame: Florida’s problem, Florida’s prospect, Florida’s paradox. Photo courtesy U.S. FWS.
The cluster of essays that follow are a kind of fire journalism – “journalism” in the old sense of a first draft to history. They are far from comprehensive in scope, themes, places, or events; rather, they are the field notes of a fire historian. Yet I hope they collectively convey some sense of the character of Florida’s fires and its fire communities. All judgments, and of course any errors, are mine alone.
The pieces became more elaborate than I had originally imagined. They are posted as written, but I have arranged for an editor to work through them, a process that should be completed by mid-June, 2011. I will then repost the suite.
Flaming Florida – a fire reconnaissance of America’s most pyric state.
- Fire Complex – Tallahassee, the Silicon Valley of prescribed fire
- After the Revolution: Tall Timbers - the upstart who grew up
- Into the Open Air - the Prescribed Fire Training Center
- Our Pappies Still Burn the Woods- thoughts on fire cultures
- DoF: Florida’s Fire Fulcrum – placing the Florida Division of Forestry
- Interlude: Raymond Conarro, Meet William James – fire controversies and why they endure, and sometimes get solved
- The More Things Change - Eglin AFB, where warbirds meet firebirds
- Regime change - St Marks NWR and its changing fires
- East is East, West is West – ranching and fire
- Slow Match, Fast Flames – Myakka River SP and strategies of fire restoration
- Interlude: Hazardous Fuels - the intellectual hazard of fuels
- One Foot in the Black – The Nature Conservancy, Florida, and fire
- Fire 101 at Star Fleet Academy – two visions of fire at Merritt Island
- Under the Dome – fire at Big Cypress National Preserve
- The Everburns - fire management at Everglades
Florida Between Two Fires - placing Florida in the national narrative
Spot fires from the region – further reading
- Not Even Past - the Jones Ecological Research Center and Ichauway Plantation, Georgia
- The Red Prescribed Longleaf Wiregrass Cockaded Burning Refuge - Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge
- Power to the People – Prescribed fire councils
