Clear Cutting or Conservation in Gulf State Park

Take a look at part of Gulf State Park near the Backcountry Trail, devastated last summer by wildfire. "To see all that gone is very shocking," says park naturalist Kelly Reetz.

Heavy equipment works inside the park grinding down stumps, mulching fallen timbers and logging has begun to salvage trees damaged by the flames. "The logging is going to take out the dead trees and because we do have tropical storms and hurricanes here we don't want those dead trees just to fall over and rot. We want to remove that and go ahead and prepare the ground for the new growth."

Fire can be good but not the way the state park burned back in July. What's happening now though is trying to make a very bad situation a lot better.

"This is the first step in reinvestigate this entire basin that burned." And while this first step may be painful watch, Phillip West says it is necessary. "Close to a thousand acres burned so in order to apply the herbicide and do the site preparations for the revegetate the state is trying to salvage as much of the damaged timber as they can and that would fund the rest of the reforestation effort."

Along with the salvage operation, a series of controlled burns are also planned in four year cycles. "With a controlled fire in the park that helps us eliminate some of the exotic species that comes through and the plants that naturally grow here are fire dependant it helps them to grow."

If this effort is successful, areas that were scarred by wildfire just a few months ago could eventually look like this. "Using fire we will be able to develop it into what it has been historically which is a swamp grassland," says Reetz.

The salvage operation is expected to last another two months, depending on the weather. The next phase should start next spring.