The people who manage healthy growth of Georgia’s 24-milion acres forestland rely on many tools. They include water, sunshine, good soil, and fire. The application of fire by trained practitioners is known as “prescribed fire” or “good fire,” and it has numerous benefits for trees, wildlife, landowners, and the forest ecosystem.

The state of Georgia annually recognizes the first full week in February as “Prescribed Fire Week.” Begun in 2005, the observance marks the many advantages fire brings to achieve specific objectives in the landscape. Those include reduction of wildfire risk, improvements in wildlife habitat and aesthetics, and enhancement of reforestation processes.

“Prescribed fire is the single best tool we have as forest land managers’” said Georgia Forestry Commission Director Johnny Sabo. “Applied under the right conditions, it can clear out dangerous forest fuels, like the debris that Hurricane Helene left behind.”

“The tool of prescribed burning is beneficial to many species,” said Georgia Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Walter Rabon. “Bobwhite quail, white-tailed deer, songbirds, and the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker all benefit from fire, along with our native longleaf pine ecosystem.”

In Fiscal Year 2025, prescribed fire was used on close to 1.5 million acres in Georgia. Georgia consistently ranks in the top three in the nation for use of prescribed fire, and in the last fiscal year, 1,474,780 million acres were prescribe-burned in the state. That total was nearly 10 percent higher than the state’s five-year average, and it represents the highest number of acreage burn permits issued in a single year since data collection began 31 years ago.

For more information on the benefits of prescribed fire, including video resources, visit GaTrees.org and follow us on social media.

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