- My gosh, look at all the flowers.

Look at the little ferns coming back.

Little curly ferns.

And then we can see a lot of blueberry flowers in here.

And there's even some- - And there's some berries on, that's on the, is that on the briar?

- I can't tell.

Oh, maybe they're on the briar.

- It is.

It looks like it's on the briar.

- I thought they were blueberries.

It was a trick.

Green briar strikes again.

[both laugh] It might seem like we're a little too excited about some pretty common plants, but what if I told you a little over a year ago, this whole area was on fire?

In November of 2021, someone lit a campfire at an undesignated campsite in Pilot Mountain State Park.

The fire spread to the rest of the park over several days and burnt more than a thousand acres, including the top of Pilot Knob, which was hard to watch, but it turns out wasn't the worst thing for the fire-adapted plants that live up there.

- [Janet] Because there's no other way to manage the vegetation up there except for with fire.

- I'm at Pilot Mountain State Park with Janet Pearson, Forest Service Ranger for Surry County in North Carolina.

There's an awesome overlook in the park where after a short hike, you can view the unique geological feature and North Carolina icon that is Pilot Mountain along with other peaks in the Sauratown Mountain Range like Sauratown Mountain and the peaks of Hanging Rock State Park.

What is Pilot made out of that means that it's still here while the rest of the land has eroded away?

- [Janet] So it's a monadnock quartzite.

Monadnock just means rocky hill outcrop.

And what has happened is everything that was a loose, softer material has eroded down into the valley floors between the three peaks, so it looks like they're isolated mountains when they're actually part of the one mountain range.

- [Host] Pilot mountain is no stranger to fire.

The high elevation attracts lightning strikes, which can start wildfires.

- There was a wildfire here in the 1920s, and it burnt the entire mountain.

We've had few wildfires between 1920s to early 2000s, and they've been relatively small.

Most of 'em we was able to get in there and get it put out.

- [Host] In 2003, the state park decided to introduce prescribed fire as a management tool at Pilot Mountain and they've continued to expand how they use fire to manage the ecosystem.

- The whole mountain itself is a fire-dependent ecosystem.

Whether you're burning for a specific species, or you're just opening the canopy to get sunlight to the floor so the next mighty oak tree can grow, or you're creating foraging habitats for the white-tailed deer or the wild turkey, the entire mountain benefits from fire.

The fire was in the entire area that you can see here in the park, but actually the most intense section was right here, and that's where we have a lot of the mortality, which is basically the dead trees.

Some people think that that's very devastating, but looking at it today, you see all of the green undergrowth in there, you see that the forest floor is just benefiting from the opening here.

It's gonna be really exciting to go out there and look and see what's coming back the second season after the fire.

- [Host] Awesome, well let's get down there.

- [Janet] Okay.

- [Host] We explored the popular Pilot Knob Trail, which loops around the base of the big pinnacle.

- This is galax.

When seasonal changes, it actually produces a odor and some people think it smells really bad.

I don't know, I enjoy it, but I guess 'cause I love being outside.

- [Host] So this whole area was burnt?

- Yes.

- Where we're at right now?

- Yes, it was not as intense.

Your intensity changes where the sun exposure is.

So on the northern facing slopes, you're not gonna have as much intense fire because it's gonna stay moist because it don't get as much sunlight.

[upbeat music] - [Host] So the Grindstone Fire covered almost the whole footprint of the park, but this area was really one of the hotter spots.

- [Janet] Correct.

We've got about five acres here that you're seeing a lot more charring in.

And the one good thing though, with all the charring that you see and the blackened trees and the dead is that you're also seeing a lot of new growth.

It's just a whole sea of green, which is great.

- [Host] These flowers are gorgeous.

What plant is this?

- This is bristly locust and this is a native plant here in the park and here in this area of North Carolina.

However, the population of the bristly locusts has exploded after the fire.

And when you look around, you look below us there is bristly locust everywhere.

It's almost like a sea of pink blossoms in here right now.

- So is this the catawba rhododendron?

- No, it is not.

- Okay, what is this?

- It is the mountain laurel.

- [Host] Okay.

- This is a great example of the regeneration effects that we get.

Sometimes the mountain laurel can get up to six foot tall.

When you're burning, it stunts it back.

So you have the old growth here, but it'll come back up out of the root system and be the smaller shrub that it's supposed to be.

Keeping it small and short like this allows other plants the opportunity to grow.

- [Host] Fire trims the catawba rhododendron the same way.

And we could see it flowering down this slope.

One of the reasons the vegetation is bouncing back so quickly is because of previous prescribed burns in the area.

- Burning reduces all of that amount of fuel that's there.

It'll take like the dead limbs and everything.

And so if there isn't a wildfire coming through, the intensity of the heat is not as devastating on the trees and the plants.

- [Host] Less intense fires means less danger for firefighting crews and the animals that live in the area.

- And the park staff here, I think they reported that they didn't find any mortality.

So I know during the fire, we were seeing white-tailed deer.

As soon as the the blacked area cooled off, we were seeing white-tailed deer going in.

They're very curious.

We've seen a lot of songbirds move through right after it.

[upbeat music] - [Host] The pine species in this area have some unique adaptations to fire.

- [Janet] Oh, there's one right coming out from the bark.

- This is pretty wild looking.

What is happening here?

- So this is a pitch pine, and this is called epicormic branching or epicormic growth.

This is something that you don't typically see in pine trees.

This is the only one, the pitch pine, that actually has this, the needles that come straight out of the bark.

Normally when you look at a pine tree, the needles come off the branches and not out of the trunk of the tree.

- [Host] Pitch pines use epicormic growth as a regeneration tactic in times of stress like fire or disease.

- It'll grow out and and do what it needs to do and then it kinda sheds off.

- [Host] The extra growth can compensate for decreased foliage on the rest of the tree and take advantage of more available sunlight.

- [Janet] A lot of times folks will say, "What is that woolly bugger pine tree?"

And normally they're talking about a pitch pine, so- - [Host] It looks like a woolly bugger caterpillar.

- [Janet] Yes, it does.

[host laughs] But this is really great to see out here.

Another example of the regeneration that's going on.

- [Host] And a lot of pine species have cones that are specially adapted to fire.

- Originally, the pine cone will look like this like a armored shell, and then when the heat opens it up, it opens it to this beautiful pine cone here and releases the seed.

And the seed actually looks like charred pieces of wood.

So like, birds won't come by and collect it.

- They're adapted to bounce back after a fire.

- Yes.

- It really benefits them there.

- And they're what we call a fire-dependent species, and so for this species to continue to grow, and be healthy, and reproduce, it needs fire.

And the fire had been suppressed in this park prior to 2003 for almost a hundred years.

So these population density was getting really small.

- [Host] So if you come out and explore the park, you'll see some charred trees, but you'll also see a lot of regrowth.

- Today, coming back a year and a half later, it's really exciting to see all of the natural regeneration that's coming up in here.

It's such a good visual for folks to see because where a lot of folks had the emotional tie to the park, they really thought that the mountain was gone forever, they would never get to come back to enjoy the park, and see anything green in the park.

And they was really worried about the animals and the trails.

It gives me great excitement to be able to show people that it is rebounding and it's doing its natural process and that is what we wanna see.

- [Host] Yeah.

[calm, relaxing music]