Many define wilderness as a large uncultivated and otherwise undeveloped parcel of land. In today's fragmented landscape of sprawling metropolises, immense agricultural fields and endless blacktop, it's hard to envision the southeast as a wilderness. With few exceptions, there are not many places left in the southeast where one could be turned around for more than a few hours before finding a house, field or road. There are even fewer places left where one can find solace outside of earshot of today's world's clamor.

In the southeastern United States, fire was the perhaps the most integral function that defined the structure of longleaf pine forests. In our fragmented landscape, it is truly difficult to fathom fires burning for days or weeks and moving across hundreds of miles only to be checked by changes in the weather or topography.

Longleaf dominated the upland landscape of the southeast. The same forest of open and parklike longleaf pine forest seen in Virginia could also be found stretching all the way to eastern Texas. At one time as far as one could see there was a seemingly unending wilderness of longleaf that one can only lust for today. To put it another way, a few hundred years ago, a traveler could journey 600 miles north of Orlando FL and be in a longleaf forest the majority of time. Likewise, a traveler could pack their bags in Beaumont Texas and travel eastward in an arch approximately 1500 miles to Norfolk Virginia and be in a forest either dominated by longleaf pine or one where longleaf pine was a major component of the forest. For comparisons sake, today, one traveling this same route would have to travel 3 days of hard driving before they left the range that was once dominated by longleaf pine.

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