The enemy no more, fire helps regenerate forests
Virginia Mercury Photos/Sarah Vogelsong
Members of a fire team carry out a prescribed burn last month on Summers Mountain in Highland County.
Sam Lindblom of the Nature Conservancy prepares a drone to drop ignitable âDragon Eggsâ over Summers Mountain during the prescribed burn.
We do know that Indigenous people were burning. The Shenandoah Valley was open. We had bison, we had elk. So they were burning historically to keep these places open for grazing lands.
— Justin Barnes, state forester
HIGHLAND COUNTY â On the warmest day of 2021 yet, the fire swept over Summers Mountain in a remote corner of Highland, a Virginia county so lightly populated that cattle outnumber humans by almost seven times.