Fire ecology is the planned, controlled burning of small areas of land. Certain ecosystems (long-leaf pine forest is one of them) are preserved naturally by fire. Through time, certain ecosystems adapted to being burned on a regular basis by fire caused by lightning strikes. Most fire-controlled ecosystems occur in parts of the world where lightning is regular at least part of the year. By setting controlled burns, forest managers can mimic natural burning in fire-controlled ecosystems.

For a long time, forest managers suppressed all forest fires because of the fear that the fires would get out of control and be dangerous. We now know that it is dangerous to always suppress fire. When fires are suppressed, forests become overgrown. Overgrown forests are dangerous, because when a forest fire does occur, it becomes a huge wildfire.

Today, forest managers organize small, planned controlled burns in order to keep forests from becoming overgrown. These "prescribed burns" reduce the risk of eventual wildfires.

The blackened bark on this pine tree is the result of a prescibed burn. The pine needles accumulated on the ground around the tree indicate that the burn was some time ago.

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