HOLDEN, W.Va. — It took a while for conditions to be just right, but officials with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources believe they were able to get a spectacular result out of a controlled burn on the Tomblin Wildlife Management Area.
“We try to do a burn every year and we were trying to recreate the original burn the first that was ever done on this property in 2017. It’s right next to the elk pen and it’s 260 acres,” said Jake Wimmer, Wildlife Manager on the Tomblin WMA.
Wimmer and colleagues from the West Virginia Division of Forestry had to keep a close eye on the forecast and find a time between lengthy periods of low humidity and heavy winds to find the right time to start the fire. Fortunately they found it and were able to scorch a sizeable piece of the property particularly areas where they are unable to seed nutritious grass covers.
Vast expanses in the property’s central areas was blackened. However, it doesn’t last long. Within days, as the forests around the WMA green up, sprouts start to form through the ashes of the fire.
“The slopes we burn out really good and let it come back the way Mother Nature wants it to, but anything flat where we can get in with tractors and disks and heavy equipment, we’ll seed that back,” he explained.
Almost all of the Tomblin’s 30,000 acres is reclaimed strip mine property. When coal companies did reclamation work, the focus was on fast growing plant life which would quickly take root and hold the soil. Very little consideration was ever given to the nutrition of wildlife. Therefore most of the vegetation on the landscape is autumn olive and sericea lespedeza, two largely invasive species of flora. Although the autumn olive berries can provide some food for birds, overall they’re not a very good source of nutritional value and when they get a start they can take over. Fire is the best way to suppress their growth.
“In this shot rock soil, it’s extremely hard to get things to grow,” Wimmer said. “We do slope burns to give a blank slate and give a chance for good, desirable species to come out the ground. That way it’s not choked out by total invasives.”
As part of the West Virginia Elk Restoration Project, a mix of grasses have been planted which provide great nutrition to cervid species and other wildlife as well as provide cover for the quail population which was introduced onto the property a few years back and continues to develop.
“We’ll do sorghum and in other areas a cover crop of winter wheat. Then we’ll do what they call a ‘big buck mix.’ It’s two parts white clover, one part red clover, sugar beats, and alfalfa. It’s great for elk and deer and turkeys. We’re also trying to better out here for quail management,” he said.