The Woods Are Alive With Smoke; A Black Blade That Saves the Birds

It’s the smoky smell of springtime in the Pinelands, via the wafting scent of controlled burns – or, more surgically speaking, prescribed burns.

These manmade forest burns are meant to incinerate leaf litter, tree branches, undergrowth and vegetative debris. This diminishes the natural fuel hungered after by wildfires, with which we’re all too familiar.