The Green Swamp is living up to its name just weeks after a wildfire torched 16,000 acres

Less than a month ago, a raging Brunswick County wildfire was raining ash down on Wilmington more than 30 miles away. Hazy, choking smoke from the smoldering inferno spread even farther across Southeastern North Carolina.

But roughly three weeks after the blaze started, and about a week after it was declared 100% contained by the N.C. Forest Service, green shoots of regeneration are clearly visible amid the charred forest floor of the Green Swamp Nature Preserve.

"In the long run, it's going to come back beautifully," said Deb Maurer, N.C. Southeast program director for The Nature Conservancy, which manages the preserve, as she pointed to 3-inch shoots of wire grass emerging from the blackened soil.

The big blaze that torched nearly 16,000 acres was a potent reminder that Eastern North Carolina is prime fire country, a natural and needed element of the Cape Fear region's environment − and one that will occur regularly whether residents like it or not.

"A lot of this habitat, this vegetation is fire-dependent," Maurer said, pointing to the nearby pond pines and towering longleaf pines in this pine savannah section of the preserve. "It needs fire."

Without periodic burnings, shrubs and non-native species can overwhelm much of the native flora that makes Southeastern North Carolina ecologically unique and special. The areas these fire-adapted and dependent species need can become choked with other vegetation, damaging native environments and knocking local ecosystems out of whack.

Case in point is the Venus' flytrap, the small and threatened carnivorous plant with a Hollywood-sized reputation that only grows naturally within roughly 70 miles of Wilmington.

"It's a necessary haircut," Maurer said of the periodic fires that clear out the vegetation on the savannah floor. "Without it, the flytraps won't have the access to sunlight and open spaces they need to thrive."

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Bouncing back

Thursday conservancy officials guided a small group of media around some of the areas of the preserve that burned last month. The tour had two purposes.

Officials wanted to show off how quickly Mother Nature can bounce back in the wake of a burning, especially in areas like the coastal plain's expansive pocosin wetlands and pine savannahs that need fire to keep habitats healthy and resilient.

"This is a piece of the story that a lot of people don't necessarily know about," Maurer said as she pointed out plants, shrubs and trees that were already growing back.

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The other goal of the tour was to highlight the importance of prescribed burns in helping the environment and controlling wildfires.

The conservancy conducts annual prescribed burns in the Green Swamp preserve, burning different parcels that can range up to 600 acres every few years.

Carmella Stirrat, the conservancy's burn director for North Carolina, said the goal is to mitigate, and in some cases help direct, where wildfires will burn. This works because the areas that have controlled burns suck up all the fuel for a wildfire, in effect starving the blaze of new kindling as it advances. That's what happened in several areas of the preserve with the recent massive wildfire.

The pine savannah the media toured Thursday had been burned by the conservancy in January. A rich mat of shrubs, wire grass and other plants were already visible around the forest floor, as was the burn line where last month's wildfire was stopped as it ran out of fresh fuel.

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Stirrat said planning − especially with the weather − is key to making sure controlled burns are done safely, limit the threats to neighboring residents and structures, and don't cause smoke or ash problems.

"Wildfires don't come with a plan," Maurer said. "When they happen, you are developing a strategy on the fly."

Last month's wildfire began as a prescribed burn conducted by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission on June 13. The fire started around Pulp Road in the preserve before it jumped its lines and grew to encompass 15,642 acres − roughly the size of the preserve. The blaze resulted in air quality warnings for much of the region, and prompted some organizations to cancel or limit outdoor activities.

A state forest service investigation into the fire is continuing. Maurer said the Brunswick blaze and April's 32,400-acre Great Lakes wildfire in the Croatan National Forest near New Bern have started "fresh conversations" among officials about the best ways to mitigate and respond to wildfires.

"You always learn something from every fire, and these incidents are no different," she said.

Reporter Gareth McGrath can be reached at GMcGrath@Gannett.com or @GarethMcGrathSN on Twitter. This story was produced with financial support from 1Earth Fund and the Prentice Foundation. The USA TODAY Network maintains full  editorial control of the work.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Brunswick County's Green Swamp rebounds after massive wildfire