Photo By Kelsie Steber | A Fort Stewart Forestry Branch employee lights a Terra Torch during a prescribed burn...... read more read more
Fort Stewart’s Forestry Branch experienced a first last week as NASA researchers observed the installation’s award-winning prescribed burn program.
Scientists from NASA’s FireSense Project were on the ground and in the sky April 14-18, to collect data and test developmental tools. The program focuses on technology development, capability demonstration and transfer to operations.
“The products that they are going to develop from this are only going to help us, especially moving forward,” said Nick Seanor, Fort Stewart Forestry Branch fire management supervisor. “Smoke management is going to be crucial going into the future, knowing exactly what our smoke is going to do, exactly what our fire is going to do, is only going to be more important going forward.”
Seanor has been with the forestry branch for six years, but his interest in wildfires ignited much earlier. At 11 years old, he was captivated by the 1998 Central Florida wildfire season, a period when multiple large fires swept through several counties causing damage in both rural and urban areas.
He stressed that the “short-term inconvenience is outweighed by the long-term benefits” of prescribed burning.
The installation burns almost 115,000 acres a year for multiple reasons, but the first and foremost is to keep the military training mission going and wildfire mitigation ties into that, Seanor said.
“By removing hazardous fuel loads, we keep wildfire potential down,” he said. “If a wildfire does occur, the severity is much lower.”
The fires also maintain the wildlife habitat that many threatened and endangered species such as the red-cockaded woodpecker, frosted flatwoods salamander and eastern indigo snake call home.
“Fire is a mobile disturbance,” said Jacquelyn Shuman, NASA FireSense project scientist. “It impacts all parts of the earth’s system. It impacts the soil, vegetation, and weather locally.”
NASA continued to exercise its strong partnership with the DoD and several academic institutions during their expedition.
“We bring together integrated teams so that we have integrated data to look at all parts of the fire,” Shuman said.
She added that these collaborations allow them to identify needs that can be applied nationally. The improvements they make and feedback from Fort Stewart can help with fires all over the country.
“We can help prescribed burns be more successful, help firefighters be safer, and help communities be safer,” Shuman said.
The installation was chosen for this assignment because of its successful prescribed burn program which runs from December 1 through June 30 each year.
“It is a great place to come out and test our instruments in an area where we know they’re going to have a prescribed fire, tell us when it’s happening and where it’s happening, so we can coordinate all of these teams,” she said.
Shuman said the prescribed burns were very successful and an opportunity to identify gaps and needs to “know what we don’t know.”
NASA has been collecting information about fire for decades and uses satellites daily to identify fires around the globe.
Fort Stewart produces 24% of forest products revenue and 29% of prescribed burn acres within the U.S. Army Installation Management Command portfolio.
For more information about the installation’s controlled burn program, follow facebook.com/FortStewartHunterArmyAirfield for daily burn notices.
| Date Taken: | 04.21.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 04.21.2025 11:28 |
| Story ID: | 495755 |
| Location: | FORT STEWART, GEORGIA, US |
| Web Views: | 46 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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