The Coweta Forestry Unit is nothing if not active. In his Aug. 18 annual report to the Coweta County Commission, Chief Ranger Terry Quigley outlined the activities of the unit which is one of Georgia’s busiest.
Quigley during the presentation also noted that the Coweta unit had recently been honored by the Georgia Forestry Commission as being the top unit in north Georgia.
The Coweta Forestry Unit covers Coweta, Fayette and south Fulton counties. The unit is responsible for 327,074 forested acres with 171,762 of those acres located in Coweta County where 61 percent of the county is considered to be forested.
The forestry unit provides a number of services including burning operations, forest management, reforestation, information and education, food plot and roadwork projects and maintenance activities.
A significant part of any forestry unit’s work is in the area of reforestation. In that regard, the local unit sold 56,091 seedlings to residents of the county for residential and commercial use, Quigley said. Among the seedlings were different varieties of oak, pine, cedar, chestnut, cypress, ash and myrtle.
The Coweta Forestry Unit in its information and education efforts in the past year invested 116 hours reaching a total of 248,886 children and adults through 28 educational programs and 16 news articles. The thrust of the effort dealt with the protection of forest lands and fire prevention, Quigley said. The unit in its efforts displayed 12 exhibits and more than 2,100 printed materials at local events aimed at enhancing awareness on fire prevention, water quality, stewardship, reforestation and forest products, said Quigley.
Yet another effort involves burning operations. Quigley said local unit personnel in the past year plowed 301 miles of pre-suppression fire breaks for 45 landowners. Rangers as a part of that effort provide property owners with burning plans for prescribed agricultural burning, Quigley said, adding that there were a total of 231 burns on 8,412 acres in Coweta County. And in Coweta rangers issued 15,867 burning permits which took state honors for the largest number of permits issued, Quigley said.
Quigley said the Coweta unit during the past year also participated in the Tree City certifications in Newnan and Sharpsburg.
Quigley in the report also noted that Georgia in the past year had seen 9,360 wildfires that burned 144,798 acres. The average fire burned 15.4 acres.
