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You’ll not find many Southern writers praising fire except those who understand fire as an ecological tool. Janisse Ray does. Her passionate work on the longleaf pine ecosystem documents how fire clears underbrush, sets seeds free and opens up healthy habitat. Several years back Chuck Leavell of Allman Brothers Band and Rolling Stones fame drove me into tall pines free of underbrush at his Georgia woodland preserve. “This landscape sure looks familiar,” I thought. Then I recalled an afternoon at Little Hobcaw Barony in Nesmith, South Carolina, where financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch established a quail hunting property in the early 1900s. Decades of controlled burns have given the land a park-like appearance. Chuck’s Charlane Woodland and Preserve looks much the same. His forestry expertise earned him national recognition for forestry management, and his PBS TV series, “America’s Forests with Chuck Leavell,” reveals how vital forest habitats are to the well-being and economic health of communities.