Ground Fires

Ground fires are restricted to the layer of duff, roots, and buried or partially buried dead and decaying logs and burn very slowly with little if any flame (see Ground Fuels). As compared to surfacecrown fires, there has been little research on rate of spread in ground fires. Fire spread through ground fire is usually slow because of the compactness of ground fuels, with burning by smoldering combustion. Ground fires in dry organic matter in swamps will often burn out much larger areas beneath the surface than is visible from above ground, creating potentially hazardous situations for people walking through the areas after a fire. Due to these hazards, fire practitioners are often wary of burning wetlands with organic soils. It is important to recognize, however, that ground fires are a natural and necessary disturbance in the maintenance of certain wetland communities in the Southeast (see: Fire Regimes of Pocosins and Large Shrub Bogs and Fire Regimes in the Okeefenokee Swamp).