FAIRHOPE, Ala. — On Monday, if you smell the pungent odor of smoke around downtown Fairhope, it means weather conditions have permitted a “controlled burn” at Knoll Park.

“It smells wonderful,” said Bobby Green, of a trial burn earlier this year at the park, home to a large stand of longleaf pines and a dazzling variety of native trees and wildflowers. “But it will be done under the watchful eye of the fire department.”

Green, owner of Green Nurseries, is one of the leaders in an effort to return the park to the way it looked before the planting of non-native trees and plants in the mid-20th century.

“It had been planted with azaleas that had grown huge over the years and become covered with invasive plants,” Green said. “The city has agreed to let the (Fairhope Single Tax) Colony renovate it to a more natural state. To that end we did a series of small burns to show the safety of the process.”

Since the City Council approved the project less than a year ago, the park has been cleared of non-native plants, an inventory of tree and plant species conducted, trails built, a meeting circle of large sandstone benches installed at the park’s highest elevation, some identifying signs hung, and more than 100 pine seedlings planted.

The next phase will be the planting in November of more than 40 native trees and plants to the almost 100 species already identified there.

“When we first removed the azaleas, there was a lot of concern,” Mayor Tim Kant said. “But now we have everybody on board. We will have a great park when it’s finished. But it will take time. You can’t just wave a wand and make it happen.”

Mac McCawley, committee chairman of the project and treasurer of the Single Tax Corp., said an article written about Knoll Park created interest in restoring the park.

“Knoll Park is an excellent example of a mature sandhill ecosystem,” wrote Peggy Dyson, a biology teacher and chair of the science department at Daphne’s Bayside Academy. “This ecosystem, one of the most important along the Southeastern coastal plan, is characterized by its dominant tree species, the longleaf pine and the turkey oak, both of which are present in the park and reach exceptionally large size there.”

Dyson said she wrote the article about 25 years ago concerned about proposals for a civic center and other development on the 3- to 5-acre park overlooking Mobile Bay, bordered by Fairhope and Magnolia avenues and West Bayview Street.

“I was trying to emphasize the importance and value of the park,” Dyson said. “Over the years, people have had to jump to the defense of the parks. It’s a special kind of place with ecological significance. It’s easy to create the kind of parks most people are familiar, but it takes a public effort to leave it as it is.”

Dyson’s article explained that the reason fire is necessary to the system is to keep it from become overgrown with thick, tangled undergrowth.

“Today in the park, mowing takes the place of fire, and this results in an important sacrifice — all young trees and shrubs are destroyed,” she wrote more than two decades ago. “In a natural setting, the fire-resistant young of longleaf pines and turkey oaks would survive and grow while other undergrowth stayed under control. For this reason, aging trees of the species are not being replaced in Knoll Park today, and loss of this basic habitat could occur.”

Green said the same thing this week.

“The park has suffered from benign neglect,” he said. “There isn’t a pine tree in that forest that’s less than 50 years old. It’s just one strong hurricane from being gone forever. Our goal is to foster generations of pine trees.”

As a local naturalist explains it, fires are necessary for longleaf pines to ensure seed germination and regeneration.

“In a functioning longleaf system, you’ll have different stages,” said Fred Nation, who has written a book on local plants. “To be a healthy functioning habitat, you need all these stages. Without fire, these habitats are not healthy.”

Green said that some people wanted to keep the azaleas and make the park more public-use oriented, adding paved sidewalks and gazebos.

“But there are already so many parks in town with that kind of use,” he said. “It was pretty enlightened that the Colony and the city would want it returned to its natural state with limited public use.”

One expert praised city plans for the park.

“This is the tree that built America,” said John Kush, acting co-director of the Longleaf Alliance, which promotes restoration of longleaf pine ecosystems. “It was the first major export in our new nation. The 90 million longleafs that once covered two-thirds of the upland part of the Southeastern United States have been reduced to about 3 million. Where they can be saved, they should be saved. That’s why a project like Fairhope’s with such community support is incredible.”

He also gave some advice about Monday’s burn.

“I hope they are getting good advice about fire,” Kush said, who is also a research fellow in forest ecology at Auburn University. “The fire can seem to be going fine. But there can be damage to the pine’s roots that only become known two to three years later. It is a risky business but it’s worth undertaking.”

The Baldwin County manager for the Alabama Forestry Commission in Loxley said that the city is in charge of such controlled burning within city limits.

“We leave it up to them,” Patrick Waldrop said. “ I’m all behind this project. Longleaf used to be the dominant tree in the region.”

Nation said Waldrop told him that since the burn was in city limits and the local fire department was involved, no permit was necessary.

“The Fairhope Fire Department will supervise the burn,” he said. “To have a restored longleaf habitat in the middle of a metropolitan area is really special. It’s a tribute to the people of this city.”

Earlier this week, one of the men who will be handling the burn walked the park, pointing out turkey oaks, black gum trees, old red-cockaded woodpecker nests and the pine seedlings he has been planting in the park.

Tom Ellis is a retired forester, on the committee to restore the park, and is chair of the city’s Tree Commission. He also helped write the “Guide to Native Trees for Landscaping on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay” available at City Hall and at the Public Works Department.

“It’s a special kind of longleaf in this sandhill system,” Ellis said, scraping his foot on the ground, exposing the sandy soil. ”I grew up and graduated high school here in 1954. All the older folks remember walking through the park, sometimes with a boy- or girlfriend.”

While Ellis talked, wind blew through the tall pines he said were here when the founders of the city arrived by boat at the pier on Mobile Bay below.

“There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t want to come back,” he said. “It’s such a beautiful place with parks like this overlooking the bay.”