Fires are a necessary part of renewal in New Jersey's Pinelands, although controlled burns are preferable to the blaze that was fully contained Monday after churning through 18 square miles of the Penn State Forest over the weekend.

“The forest is going to bounce back from this fire just as quickly as they always do. In five to seven years, it’ll probably look like there was no fire there. Maybe sooner than that," said Michael Achey, division warden for New Jersey Forest Fire Service. "One thing about the pine forest is that they seem to like reoccurring fires and seem to bounce back very quickly.”

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The pitch pine prefers a pyre

Underneath the canopy of the Pinelands, the soil is relatively acidic, which means the needles, bark and other bits of natural litter don't decompose easily on the forest floor, according to the Pinelands Commission. The land here is also sandy and highly permeable so the top layer doesn't hold much water.

Not every kind of tree or shrub can flourish in these conditions — dry and lacking in nutrients — but it doesn't seem to bother the pitch pine, the most emblematic tree of the Pinelands and also the most flammable.

In fact, the pitch pine — hearty enough with its thick bark to survive an inferno — depends on the fire to reproduce.

This species bears the traditional pine cone to transport its seeds, but it also produces serotinous cones. Inside of these vessels, future generations of trees are sealed inside until extreme heat melts the resin, opens the cone and releases the seeds.

If everything goes right, the seeds are dropped into a fresh layer of highly nutritious topsoil from the ashes on the forest floor, giving them a fighting chance to take root and sprout into a seedling.

“We see this throughout our plant species," said Ryan Rebozo, director of conservation science at the Pinelands Protection Alliance, "all these different strategies for persisting or rebuilding after a fire.”

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Fire as a tool

Because of those benefits and to mitigate the risks of out-of-control wildfires, the state does schedule controlled burns with the proper precautions to protect life, property and natural resources, said John Rieth, assistant warden for the state Forest Fire Service.

“It’s not like our folks are out there burning the forest," he told the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey. "It’s a lot more scientific than that.”

Prescribed burns are common during March.

Just in the past week, state fire service personnel have intentionally set fires in wooded areas in Manchester, near Six Flags Great Adventure and by Miller Air Park.

Problem areas are usually burned once every three to five years, but some locations require annual attention while others can be left alone for 10 years before their fuel load becomes unacceptable.

Nonetheless, wildfires cause anxiety, especially California's most lethal and destructive fire season ever so fresh in the public's mind. But even that scorched earth is on the rebound, sprouting new growth.

Every year the New Jersey Forest Fire Service treats some 15,000 to 20,000 acres of land with fire, including an average of 5,000 acres of private wooded property.

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Not a new phenomenon

Before colonization, the Lenape tribe would set fires in the Pines to clear brush, making hunting and travel easier, according to the Pinelands Commission.

Fires regularly break out on accident or entirely independent of humans.

Throughout the 1800s, fire records show that it wasn't out of the ordinary for 1 million acres to burn uncontrolled in a single year from wildfires.

By the middle of the 20th century, research showed that major wildfires in the Pinelands had been largely tamed. From 1953 to 1982, about 1,800 acres burned in a given year, according to a study in the "Bulletin of the New Jersey Academy of Science."

The Warren Grove fire in 2007 was New Jersey's most consequential forest fire in modern times. Four homes were lost and 50 others damaged in that 17,000-acre wildfire that still haunts some of those who had to flee that day.

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“I remember standing in the middle of my living room … and trying to figure out what things were important to me," said Lynne Larsen, of Barnegat, in an interview with the Asbury Park Press in December. "To try and take all your memories, and put them in a car and get out of the way of a fire, is just impossible.”

Russ Zimmer: 732-557-5748, razimmer@app.com, @russzimmer