Fire has played a crucial role in shaping the landscape of the West Gulf Coastal Plain: most plant communities within it exist and are maintained only by a regular occurrence of fire (they are "pyrogenic"). Without fire, rapid transformation occurs, notably the invasion of woody species that shade out smaller herbaceous species.
Before modern intervention, fires occurred naturally on the West Gulf Coastal Plain every 2 to 6 years (the natural fire 'return interval'). Because of topographic and physiognomic uniformity of the region, only a few ignitions would have been sufficient to burn hundreds of thousands of hectares.
The area to the right of the road has been burned regularly. That to the left has been unburned.
REFERENCES
Nowacki, G.J. and M.D. Abrams. 2008. The demise of fire and “Mesophication” of forests in the eastern United States. BioScience 58:123-138.
Philipps, T.C., S.B. Walker, B.R. MacRoberts, and M.H. MacRoberts. 2007. Vascular flora of a longleaf pine upland in Sabine County, Texas. Phytologia 89:317-338.
