FIRE IN SOUTHERN ECOSYSTEMS
FIRE ADAPTATIONS
This activity answers questions about what happens to animals and plants during
fires. It investigates how plants and animals are adapted to fire-dependent ecosystems.
It introduces prescribed burning as a way to decrease damaging wildfires.
Theme
Subjects
Grades
Objectives
Method
Location
Materials
Duration
Assessment
Plant or animal characteristics that help them live with fire.
Science, English Language Arts, Visual Arts
3–12
Students will identify and discuss adaptive strategies used by plants and
animals to live with fire.
Students participate in an interactive poll where they vote on what they
think happens to plants and animals during a prescribed burn. They then
watch a video, read, and participate in discussion about fire adaptations
and prescribed burning. Students also conduct research and fill out a data
sheet on a fire-adapted plant or animal of their choice.
In the classroom
Paper and pencil to write up report, library or Internet access, one of the
fire ecology videos from the FISE website.
1-3 hours, flexible
Assessment questions for grades 3–5 and 6–12 are provided.
Getting Ready
Make copies of the Background
Reading. Download one of the fire
ecology videos from the FISE website
(www.FireinSouthernEcosystems.com).
Background
All living things have some traits that
are adaptations to help them live in
their environment. An adaptation is a
behavior, physical feature, or other
characteristic that helps a plant or animal
survive and make the most of its
habitat.
fire-adapted ecosystem have formed
adaptive traits or abilities that allow
them to either survive in place,
reproduce, or regenerate after a fire has
passed. Animals avoid fire by moving
away, going up a tree, going into a hole
underground or in a tree, or hiding in
damp areas. Most plants and animals
that are adapted to fire actually require
periodic fire in their habitat to survive.
Prescribed fire benefits fire-adapted
Plants and animals that live in an area
that has frequent fire have special
adaptations that allow them to survive
fire. For example, plants that thrive in a
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ecosystems by creating a low-intensity
fire that mimics natural fire return
intervals. On the other hand, exclusion
of fire over several years allows fuels to
build up to the point that it creates
conditions for intense wildfires that
plants and animals cannot survive.
Pre-Activities
Teachers conduct a review and
discussion of adaptations. Why would an
animal need an adaptation? Some
possible answers: for getting food (e.g.,
an anteater’s tongue and claws), for
defense (e.g., a skunk’s stinky smell), for
sensing and escaping predators (e.g., a
deer’s acute hearing, brown coloring,
and speed), or for living in their
environment (e.g., a rabbit’s big ears
hear well and also let heat escape).
What about plants? What adaptations do
they have? Some examples include
toxins in leaves to make then less
attractive to herbivores, long tap roots
that reach down into the soil to access
water, or tiny hair-like structures on
leaves to prevent water loss. What
adaptations do humans have to survive
in their environment?
The Activity
How do plants and animals survive fire?
Investigating fire adaptations can help
students better understand how plants
and animals can live with and benefit
from fire. Students will learn about
adaptations through a video, discussion,
and creative activity.
Step 1: Discussion
Begin by asking students what they think
happens to plants and animals during a
fire. Educators can take a chalkboard
poll (see example next page) to assess
student opinions on whether plants and
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animals survive fire and what happens to
plants and animals during a fire. Do
students think plants and animals can
survive a fire? Which animals can and
cannot escape? What strategies can
plants use to survive a fire? How might
fire be harmful to plants and animals?
How might fire be helpful to plants and
animals?
Step 2: Video Review and Reading
Watch one of the fire ecology videos
available from the FISE website. The
video introduces the concept of
prescribed burning and fire-adaptive
strategies of plants and animals.
Following the video, ask students to read
the Background Reading.
After students read the passage and
watch the video, ask them about the
chalkboard poll again. Did their opinions
about what happened to the plants and
animals change? Why?
Step 3: Research and Reporting
Ask students to research one of the
plants or animals found in the video or
the reading passage. They can look on
the Internet or in the library. Have them
find out how the animal or plant species
survives fire and what adaptations help
it.
Each student should fill out the Fire
Adaptations Student Research Page.
Wrap-Up
Discuss how prescribed burning helps
ecosystems and the plant and animal
species in them. What might happen if
fire is kept out of a southern pine
ecosystem for a long time? Discuss the
differences between southern pine
ecosystems with fire and without fire.
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Resources
Southern pine
ecosystems
without fire
Fuels build up
Habitat changes
Wildfire risk high
Ecosystem does not
support fire-adapted
species
Fire Ecology Videos
www.FireinSouthernEcosystems.com
To find resources on the Internet, search the
term adaptations to fire or the names of
some of the plants or animals mentioned in
these activities.
Southern pine
ecosystems
with fire
Fuels stay low
Habitat stays the
same
Wildfire risk low
Ecosystem supports
fire-adapted species
Related Activities
Fire in the Southern Pine Ecosystem
Burned Area Scavenger Hunt
Cycles Behind the Scenes
Enrichment
Grades 3–8
1. Ask students to design their own
fictitious fire-adapted plant or
animal. The plant or animal must
have some particular feature that
adapts it to fire. Discuss the students’
inventions and note any parallels to
adaptations of actual plants and
animals that live with fire.
2. Design a class mural to show
adaptations of plants and animals to
fire. Have each student represent the
plant or animal that they researched
in its proper role in the environment.
Post-Activities
1. Invite a forester from your state
agency to your classroom to discuss
prescribed burning and its benefits to
ecosystems.
2. Read the poem The Jabberwocky by
Lewis Carroll aloud with your
students. Ask them to describe what
they think the Jabberwocky’s habitat
is like and how it survives there.
Have them draw a picture of what
they imagine the Jabberwocky looks
like and label its parts.
Conducting a Chalkboard Poll
The object of the chalkboard poll is to see
what your students think happens to plants
and animals when a prescribed fire is set.
Let them know that a prescribed fire is a
fire intentionally set by land managers.
Make categories like the ones in the
graphic. Pick plants and animals from the
fire ecology video or from the reading
passage. At the beginning of the activity,
ask students to vote on what they think
happens to the plant or animal during a
prescribed burn. Record their answers on
the board and refer to them later after they
have watched the video and read the
passage to see if anyone changed their
mind.
Move
Take
Natural
away
cover
defenses
Destroyed
tortoise
0
13
2
5
Insects
2
6
2
10
Birds
15
2
0
3
0
0
5
15
Gopher
Longleaf
Pine
Example of a chalkboard poll
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Background Reading: Fire Adaptations
All living things have developed traits in response to their environments. These traits are
called adaptations. Adaptations are physical features or behaviors, that help a plant or
animal survive and make the most of its habitat. Plants and animals that live in a firedependent ecosystem have adaptations that allow them to survive and recover after a fire
has passed.
Plants Can’t Run
In the face of fire, plants can’t run, fly, creep, or crawl
away. Because plants are rooted in place, they must have
special adaptations to help them survive fire.
One way for a plant to survive a fire is to insulate itself
from the heat of the flames. This insulation is especially
important for big trees, because they can’t afford to burn
down to the ground and start growing all over again like
smaller plants. The bark of fire-adapted pine trees such as
longleaf pine, slash pine, and loblolly pine—is thicker
than the bark of pine trees not adapted to survive fires.
This adaptation of thick bark protects southern pines from the heat of most fires.
Small woody shrubs have thin bark, and herbaceous plants such as grasses and
wildflowers have no bark at all. Instead of depending on thick bark for protection, these
plants use the soil to insulate their roots from the fire. The upper parts of these shrubs and
plants may burn up completely in a fire, but the underground parts survive below the soil.
These plants send up new green growth, called shoots, from underground roots, bulbs, or
rhizomes after the fire has passed.
Some plants protect their buds with layers of foliage as an adaptive strategy to survive a
fire. Longleaf pines have this adaptive strategy—a thick cluster of juicy green pine
needles, which is important to protect the buds of the young longleaf pine for future tree
growth.
Another strategy of plants is to produce seeds after a fire. Because fire clears out
undergrowth in the forest, plants that produce seeds right after a fire have an advantage
of growing with more sun, more nutrients from the fresh ash left behind by the fire, and
less competition from other plants. For example, only a couple of months after a fire,
wiregrass can cover the forest floor with new shoots and tall, wheat-like flowers!
Wiregrass is a tall sandhill grass that responds especially well to spring fires, the time of
year that lightning naturally started fires in the past.
Some types of pines have pine cones that open after a fire. These serotinous cones are
held closed by a sticky resin that melts at high temperatures. The heat of a fire opens
the cones and allows the seeds to escape. Sand pines and pond pines are two types of
southern pines that have serotinous cones.
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Background Reading: Fire Adaptations (continued)
Where Do Animals Go?
Animals have many behaviors that help them avoid getting burned in a fire. For example,
animals can hide from a fire in many different kinds of places. Larger animals such as
deer, bear, and fox will walk or run away from a fire. Wildfires in southern pine forests
usually move slowly, so most animals can simply walk away, though some wildfires can
move very quickly. Most prescribed fires (also called controlled burns) that are set by
land managers move even more slowly across the landscape than wildfires. The average
human walks faster than the speed of a prescribed fire moving across the forest floor and
even most small animals can easily escape slow-moving prescribed burns.
Animals that are not able to walk fast enough to
escape a fire sometimes hide in underground burrows
or in low, moist places. Insects will hide under the
leaf litter or duff at the top of the soil or under the
bark of a pine tree. Since the heat from a fire rises
upward, temperatures are not intensely hot just a
centimeter under the soil. Some insects and birds go
up high in trees to escape the flames.
Some examples of plants and
animals that need fire:
 Longleaf pine
 Pines with serotinous cones
 Wiregrass
 Gopher tortoise
 Florida scrub-jay
 Florida mouse
 Red-cockaded woodpecker
 Many insects
Mice, rats, snakes, and lizards also escape in the
relatively cool soil. Many reptiles and small mammals
hide in the burrow of the gopher tortoise, who is
sometimes called the “innkeeper” of the pine forest. The burrows often reach 10 or more
feet underground and can be 40 feet long, so they are insulated by earth and remain cool
during a fire. Wetland creatures such as turtles and amphibians will seek shelter under
water.
Birds can fly away from the fire, though some birds are attracted to the fire to feed on
insects as they escape the flames!
Sometimes young birds and other small animals may not be able to escape a fire. Many
studies have been done about this because people are concerned about animals. Even
though some small animals may die, scientists have shown that fire improves the habitat
and the remaining animals will thrive and make new nests. Even though a few individuals
are lost, the habitat as a whole is better off after the fire so the animal populations will
grow.
Fires reduce the numbers of many pest insects, such as ticks, chiggers, and pine beetles.
Some insects, however, seem to thrive after a fire. Ant populations are more numerous in
burned areas than in unburned areas, probably because the increase sunlight on the
ground means more food for the ants. Ants are known to play an important role in pine
forest ecosystems and are a major food source for the endangered red-cockaded
woodpecker.
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Background Reading: Fire Adaptations (continued)
In summary, both plants and animals have adaptations to survive regular, fires that occur
at natural fire return intervals. These natural communities are called fire-adapted
ecosystems. Because they are adapted to fire, many plants and animals actually require
habitats maintained by fire. For example, the gopher tortoise needs fire to maintain an
open ecosystem with sun and plenty of fresh, green food. Today, scientists recognize that
fire is beneficial to ecosystems by opening up the understory to sunlight and bringing
new growth. Low-intensity prescribed fire is healthy for fire-adapted ecosystems and
mimics the fires that have naturally occurred every few years for thousands of years. On
the other hand, exclusion of fire is unnatural in most southern ecosystems and creates
conditions for intense wildfires that plants and animals cannot survive.
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Fire Adaptations Student Research Page
Name: _____________________________ Date: _____________________________
Plant or animal researched:
Size:
Life span:
Habitat:
Why is this plant or animal interesting to you?
What does this plant or animal do when a fire comes?
What adaptations does this plant or animal have to deal with fire?
Do you feel fire is a necessary part of this plant or animal’s life cycle? Why or why
not?
What would happen if fire was kept from this plant or animal’s natural ecosystem
for many years?
Name three ways that prescribed fire benefits southern ecosystems:
1)
2)
3)
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Grades 3–5 Assessment Questions: Fire Adaptations
READING
In the sixth paragraph of the reading, a type of plant called wiregrass is mentioned. Based
on the reading, which of the following is not true about wiregrass
a) It is a common plant of the sandhills
b) Its seeds are destroyed by fire
c) It responds well to spring fires
d) It can produce seeds only a couple of months after a fire
WRITING
Adaptations are important to the survival of forest plants and animals. Choose an animal
or plant from the southern pine forest and pretend that you are that animal or plant. Write
a story describing how your adaptations help you to not only survive fire, but thrive in a
fire-adapted ecosystem.
SCIENCE
Please indicate below how you think a snake is most likely to survive a prescribed fire in
a healthy southern pine forest.
a) Coil up tight and close her eyes
b) Slither up in a short bush
c) Crawl down in a gopher tortoise burrow
d) Hide in a pile of pine needles
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Grades 3–5 Answer Key: Fire Adaptations
READING
Answer: b
Content Complexity Rating: 3
WRITING
Narrative Writing
Content Complexity Rating: 3
SCIENCE
Answer: c
Grade 3: Big Idea 17. Interdependence
Content Complexity Rating: 2
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Grades 6–12 Assessment Questions: Fire Adaptations
READING
1. In the sixth paragraph of the reading, a type of plant called wiregrass is mentioned.
Based on the reading, which of the following is not true about wiregrass
a) It is a common plant of the sandhills
b) Its seeds are destroyed by fire
c) It responds well to spring fires
d) It can produce seeds only a couple of months after a fire
2. Based on how you responded to Question #1, write an original sentence about
wiregrass.
3. Based on what you learned from the reading or video, explain how gopher tortoises
survive fire in the pine forest and how they help other animals to survive fire. Use
information from the reading or video to support your answer.
WRITING
Many citizens believe that prescribed fire is dangerous to animals and plants. Choose an
example of a plant or animal from the reading or from the video. Write to persuade these
skeptical citizens of the benefits of prescribed fire based on the benefits to the plant or
animal you selected.
SCIENCE
Using information from one of the fire ecology videos, write one paragraph that discusses
the historical changes in thinking about the role of fire in southern ecosystems.
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Grades 6–12 Answer Key: Fire Adaptations
READING
1. b
Content Complexity Rating: 1 and 2
2. Short Response
Content Complexity Rating: 1 and 2
Sample Reponses:
Wiregrass is an important component of the Sandhill ecosystem.
Wiregrass grows well after spring fires.
Fires help wiregrass grow.
3. Extended Response
Content Complexity Rating: 1 and 2
WRITING
Persuasive Writing
Content Complexity Rating: 2
SCIENCE
Constructed Response: Score item using the 2-point FCAT 2.0 Science Rubric. (Sample
scoring information provided below.)
Content Complexity Rating: 2
Sample Response:
Years ago lightning caused fires to happen a lot. The first people to notice good things
about fire were the Native Americans. They even set fires to improve hunting and to get
rid of brush from around their homes. Later, Europeans also set fires to improve grazing
for their cattle. In about 1900, setting fires was stopped because it was thought that it was
bad for pine forests and wild animals. By the 1970s, scientists had figured out why
regular fires were important. Regular fires prevented dead plants and leaves and brush
from becoming fuel for wildfires and they also helped some plants and animals that need
fire. Now we understand why fire is important. We do prescribed burns regularly to get
the same effect as natural fires.
2-Point Response:
(1) Student clearly articulates a shift in scientific knowledge about fire in southern
ecosystems, AND
(2) Student cites specific supporting examples of changes in thinking over time.
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