Saplings lessen fire's impact

MIO -- A bulldozer lumbered through a clear-cut tract in Oscoda County and plopped little jack pine trees into the sandy soil.

"It is monotonous work," said Mark Zygiel, a contracted tree-planter with the U.S. Forest Service. "It's nice to go back and see the fields of trees five or 10 years later."

The work is part of annual reforestation efforts in the Huron-Manistee National Forest to rotate the area's jack pine growth and keep enough suitable habitats for the endangered Kirtland's warbler, one of the mascot creatures of the local national forest. This spring, planting territory includes logged parts of the forest and areas where wildfires burned up prime warbler breeding grounds.

The 5,800-acre Hughes Lake fire burned in Ogemaw, Oscoda and Crawford counties in 2006, destroying about 500 acres of jack pines that were the ideal size to provide shelter for Kirtland's warblers, which nest on the ground beneath the lowest branches. Parts of that fire zone will be replanted this month, along with other areas in Crawford, Oscoda and Alcona counties.

"It set the area back about five or six years," said Ralph Hartman, forester with the U.S. Forest Service. "We're still trying to recover from that fire, even though it's been two years."

About 445,000 trees will be planted across the region by month's end, purchased through a grant partnership between the Arbor Day Foundation and Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Almost $70,000 was spent on two-year-old jack pine saplings here, in addition to other national forests that received funding in Oregon, Montana and California, areas that all saw losses to wildfires.

About two million trees have been planted in Alabama, California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Montana, Oregon, South Dakota, Canada and Scotland since the effort was launched two years ago. The goal is to plant 50 million trees over the next 50 years, said Ned Maniscalco, spokesman for Enterprise.

The program will help make a real difference over the next half-century, said John Rosenow, president of the Arbor Day Foundation.

"A reforestation effort of this scale allows us to plant trees where they're most badly needed, particularly as we continue to experience some of the most devastating fire seasons on record," he said.

Photos

A jack pine sapling is planted by a machine in the sandy soils of Oscoda County.

A row of newly planted jack pine saplings in Oscoda County