Controlled Burning at Huntley Meadows

Huntley Meadows is a 4500-acre park in Alexandria-Fairfax County, but today the park service only maintains about 30 acres of meadows. The remainder of the park is following the natural life cycle of the land. The park's management recently ignited a number of controlled burns to clear up the duff and to help keep the forest healthy. You'll see signs of the fire along many paths in the park.

In the days before Columbus, Northern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley mostly a sprawling meadow, and even here on the East Coast we had bison herds. The meadows are not the natural state here though, and they were maintained by natives who burned and cut the forest from time to time to leave room for the big herding animals. Left on its own, the land here will slowly revert to a hardwood forest. In Huntley Meadows, visitors can explore this forest by way of many trails and paths.

The change to forest happens over time. When the meadows first fall fallow, weeds rush in. In a few years brambles and honey suckle mix in with fast growing trees like locusts or cedars. Eventually the tree canopy grows so thick that the vines and undergrowth begin to die off. In dry months, this undergrowth becomes brittle and fires are easy to start. Left unchecked, nature will start its own fire to clear the undergrowth and to replenish the hardwoods as they grow.

The forests of Huntley Meadows are young. This is evidenced not only by the diameter of the trunks and by the types of trees that are tallest. It's also evidenced by the duff, or undergrowth, that is heavy in parts of the forest.