Photo by Kyle LaFerriere for The Nature Conservancy.
Supporting the restoration of forests across southern Appalachia
After the smoke clears and the fire teams head home, the forests in southern Appalachia get to work on regeneration.
Fire returns nutrients back into the soil, dispersing seeds of fire-adapted plants and allowing seedlings a chance at light. Grass begins to sprout and songbirds build nests in newly configured canopies. Dead trees become shelter for bobcats and barred owls.
Prescribed burns, much like prescribed medicines, aim to sustain health for ecosystems vulnerable to harm. A carefully controlled blaze can improve habitat for plants and animals, as well as remove fuel that has the potential to drive uncontrolled wildfires.
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) partners with local organizations and uses funding support from private and public sources to work year-round to harness the power of fire to save forests throughout southern Appalachia.
TNC stewards fire-dependent and adapted ecosystems through controlled burning, as has been done through Indigenous burning and lightning for time immemorial. This approach supports a diverse mosaic of open woodlands, young forest and shady old growth and all the biological diversity that resilient, tended ecosystems provide.
That’s because over time, lack of fire at the right frequency and the right intensity can cause these habitats to change, putting plant and animal species that depend on them at risk of extinction.

Appalachia assists
In 2024, TNC’s southern Appalachian fire teams helped burn more than 100,000 acres from southwest Virginia to northern Alabama. Most of the burns were assists, helping federal, state and local partners burn when the weather was right.
These efforts require an immense amount of planning based on decades of research to determine the best approach for supporting a healthy forest.
Take the Blue Panther in Virginia this year, a study in partnership, collaboration and patience. In 2008, TNC and the U.S. Forest Service began the Warm Springs Mountain Restoration Project. Since then, the partners have worked to put fire on the ground with burns becoming increasingly more complicated and sizeable culminating in the 6,670-acre Blue Panther burn in late April.
The relationships between TNC and the U.S. Forest Service in the past decades have been crucial to success on the ground, said forester Helen H. Mohr, director of the Consortium of Appalachian Managers and Scientists.


She said fire professionals across the southern Appalachians no longer work in silos or see state boundaries or organizational affiliations as an obstacle. Instead, agencies partner for fire training and advocate a proactive fire management approach.
Last year, TNC and the Forest Service expanded a 20-year partnership with a series of agreements leveraging public and private funding to develop the prescribed fire workforce and increase collaboration on beneficial fire.
“Historically, we know that our mountains saw fire every eight to 12 years, supporting fire dependent ecosystems,” Mohr said.
She notes the fire-adapted Table Mountain pine and pitch pine, which reproduce with cones that open and spread seeds after high heat exposure. The short and squatty pines grow along the south-facing slopes of Appalachian ridges. Fire ensures their survival but also controls another species, the mountain laurel, which burns with extreme intensity and fuels wildfires.
“It’s somewhat of an art,” Mohr said of prescribed burns. “It’s a beautiful thing to use a tool that can be so destructive in such a positive way.”
Power of partnerships
Other prescribed burns took place this year in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama.

In North Carolina, TNC entered a Memorandum of Understanding with the Bureau of Indian Affairs for projects on tribal lands and conducted a controlled burn on the Qualla Boundary, the home of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
In South Carolina, TNC put a fire crew on the ground to help partners with prep and burning, resulting in 15 burns, including that of 2,723 acres of fire on the Sumter National Forest.
In Georgia, the Nantahala National Forest relied on backcountry burning in the far reaches of the forest, which are rugged and harder to reach with prescribed fire. In the Chattahoochee National Forest, more than 2,500 acres were burned, and the positive results are inspiring similar efforts across the region.
And in northern Alabama, two of TNC’s priority areas come together where the Appalachians merge with the longleaf pine system. Montane longleaf pine is rare, and it needs the bare ground and sunlight created by fire to grow. In 2024, prescribed burns covered 25,000 acres burned on U.S. Forest Service land in Alabama.
Prescribed burns are somewhat of an art. It’s a beautiful thing to use a tool that can be so destructive in such a positive way.
Helen Mohr, USDA Forest Service
Supporting TNC
Through a multi-year grant totaling $1 million, Williams is supporting TNC’s efforts to improve freshwaters and forests in southern Appalachia.
Mark Gebbia, Williams vice president of Environmental, Regulatory and Permitting, says Williams supports this work given its commitment to environmental stewardship through evidence-based practices. The gift also unlocks millions of dollars in public investment in communities throughout the Appalachians.
“Applying scientific approaches and leveraging cultural traditions, the fire program in the southern Appalachia has been extremely effective. We’re excited to be one of many supporters of TNC in their efforts to conserve our lands and improve resilience through broad, connected initiatives such as this.”