Lighting a fire under science students

About a quarter-acre of forest behind High Point Regional High School was burned Thursday, Oct. 19 as about 100 students watched.

Their teachers - and even Principal Jon Tallamy - lit the flames, supervised by members of the New Jersey Forest Fire Service.

”You have to watch what you’re doing while you’re walking and make sure you’re not swinging it behind you,” Tallamy said, referring to the container of diesel fuel used to light the fire.

He and others who lit the flames were following a raked path that the Forest Fire Service staff created Sunday, Oct. 15. “You’re trying to burn the underbrush of leaves away. ... It’s a very neat experience.”

The prescribed burn was the second one at the high school. During the first one in May 2022, another quarter-acre was burned next to the area burned Oct. 19.

Environmental science students have been studying the effects of the first prescribed burn since then.

Before the recent one, they took soil samples that they plan to compare with samples taken after the earth begins to recover from the fire.

Aaron Baker, who teaches Advanced Placement Environmental Science, said his students are doing a time-lapse documentary of the site. They took photos before of one location before and during the prescribed burn. They’ll do the same thing next week, early in the spring and late in the spring.

”We also do some analysis of the soil quality,” he said. “We should see an increase in those nutrient levels, and that’s one of several purposes of doing a controlled burn.”

Students also will look at whether invasive species of plants are replacing native ones. For example, Japanese stiltgrass has grown in the area that was burned in 2022.

Katie Goodman, a physics teacher who is co-teaching an environmental science class this year, said she is curious about how the new fire will affect the stiltgrass, which comes back very quickly after a disturbance. “It’s an annual that’s always in the seed bank and it comes up after a fire disturbance.”

Art Mina, who teaches a class in environmental systems, called the prescribed burn perfect. “It was slow enough and even enough and thorough enough to do what we wanted it to do.

”We’re trying to model what happens after a fire on a very small scale,” he said, adding that he hopes the demonstration will help students understand what happens in wildfires in California and elsewhere.

Recent graduates

Four of the Forest Fire Service staffers were High Point graduates, including Sierra Viggiano, who received her diploma in June. She was a student during the first prescribed burn and said it was one reason she joined the service.

“My dad’s done it (volunteer firefighting) basically his whole life so I grew up seeing it all.”

Nick Southard, who graduated in 2021, and Mercedes Little, who graduated in 2018, are both local volunteer firefighters. Both signed up with the Forest Fire Service at the New Jersey State Fair in August.

The three recently finished their training and were taking part in their first prescribed burn.

”This as far as I know went very well, better than we were hoping for,” Southard said.

Cameron Webster, who graduated in 2021, said he had worked on other prescribed burns for the Forest Fire Service. This one was tame compared with others, he said, probably because the ground was damp and the fires burned out quickly.

He loves working for the service “because you get to play with fire, you get to start fires and you get to put them out.”

Special-education teacher Cindy Zajac said, “I think it’s a great thing for the kids to see and experience because how many places are doing these controlled burns?”