A worker at the Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge, located in Bibb and Twiggs counties, lights a prescibed fire in 2014. Burning the understory encourages the growth of pine trees, which provide habitat for the red cockaded woodpecker. Native Americans living in the Piedmont prior to European arrival also set surface fires to clear land for agriculture. The thick-barked pines survive, but most shrubs and saplings are killed, favoring an open forest with grasses and herbs.
Photograph by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast Region
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