By Ryan Harris
The Chattanooga Times Free Press

CHEROKEE NATIONAL FOREST, Tenn. — While the season for prescribed fires is coming to an end for Georgia foresters, the fires are just now being lit on what will total some 20,000 acres of the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee.

About 6,000 acres of forest is burned off each year in Northwest Georgia, forestry officials said.

National Forest Service spokesman Terry McDonald said about 12,000 acres of the Cherokee's Ocoee and Hiwassee districts are scheduled for controlled burns over the course of a month.

Prescribed fires reduce vegetation that can intensify fires during drier months, clear soil for seeding and promote new sprout growth that serves as food for wildlife, forest management officials said. The fires also help eliminate unwanted species of plants and control disease and insects.

That's what the Georgia Forestry Commission was doing this week on a 40-acre of loblolly pine plantation along Crow Valley Road in Whitfield County, Ga., said Forestry Commission Chief Ranger Jimmy Gallman.

"It was to get rid of competition of bushes and shrubs coming up in it, and to reduce the fire danger," Mr. Gallman said. "Burning it also releases nutrients back into the soil, and it's healthy on the trees."

David Jackson, a field supervisor with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, said his office does most prescribed burns in the winter. He said there were five burns conducted this week, and the season will wind down soon.

"In some areas it makes it hard to burn when things start greening up and you lose your fuel source," Mr. Jackson said. "In April it usually gets wet, and that makes it more difficult. You can do warm season burns, but for what we want we like the cold weather better."

Weather is important for a successful prescribed burn. Mr. Jackson said dry weather early in the fire season had made it too difficult for controlled burning, but it has improved.

"You look to get those frontal systems that move through and dry out the air, in behind the rain, and a day or so after that when the humidity comes up just a little bit, you've got a good steady wind from one direction, that's the best burn day," Mr. Jackson said. "You don't want a variable wind because you want to control that burn and not let it get too hot."

Marty Bently, assistant fire management officer for the Forest Service in Tennessee, said growing conditions in East Tennessee allow burned areas to quickly "green up." Often, he said, visitors don't even know that the prescribed fire has occurred.

Some environmental groups oppose prescription burning, but forest officials said they believe it is a positive action for the forest and a safety factor to protect against wildfires.