Prescribed Burns Enhance, Rehab and Restore Natural Habitat

Intentionally and surgically burning grassland or woody vegetation – whether in the far reaches of the Sandhills or the urban ‘habitats’ inside the city of Lincoln – is a tool of great benefit. But only if undertaken carefully and safely after intense planning.

That message was drilled into those who sat in for Wednesday’s all-day, 11th annual Nebraska Prescribed Fire Conference at the Kearney Holiday Inn.

Eric Hunt of the UNL Climatology Department shared his detailed overview of weather for the state, both past and future predictions, via an off-site video presentation.

Hunt said there is a “really good chance we’re going to see some extended patterns of colder temperatures” in the coming winter. “Spring could be dry,” but with “better moisture chances in the summer months.”

UNL professor and prescribed fire expert Dirac Twidwell took this special-interest audience deep into the science of using surgical flame to control invasive woody species. In this area the chief adversary for habitat managers, landowners and conservationists alike is the eastern redcedar.

“Nebraska,” Twidwell said, “is the fastest growing state in the nation” in terms of prescribed burn use.

This, despite a historically heavy human hand in tight control.

“Fire is the most regulated force or nature on the planet,” he said.

During 100 years of full wildfire suppression government policy and misguided public opinion, during which time every lick of flame was immediately doused, the natural balance has been stunted and stymied. Mother Nature’s historically proven method of habitat renewal by the natural occurrence of fire was utterly short-circuited.

That fire strategy, he added, has resulted in the current “10-year-and-counting wildfire era,” proof of which lies in so many scorched earth, multiple fatality fires across the country in that decade.

“Historically,” he told the conference audience, “one-third of all tallgrass prairie burned every year from Saskatchewan to the Texas-Mexico border. But not anymore” which “has made prescribed fire necessary. Policy is the No. 1 thing driving how fire behaves today.”

And there’s no time to waste dealing with, specifically, eastern redcedar.

“If you wait, you never really get it back,” he cautioned. “At 50% coverage” of the invasive and pervasive junipers, “it’s irreversible. You never get that (habitat balance) back. The message is, don’t wait” because “it gets harder and harder to do the longer you wait” to treat with fire.

Expansive forest fires in states such as California, Texas, the Pacific Northwest and similar heavy population regions get all the headlines, but Twidwell said not so fast. “We have some of the largest wildfires in the country on the Great Plains,” but they are “not so visible” because few people live here by comparison.

The fascinating urban approach to prescribed burns was presented in words, charts and photos by Ed Hubbs and Aaron Druery. Hubbs is with Audubon Great Plains. Druery is district parks supervisor for the City of Lincoln.

The men, who often work hand-in-hand to complete boots on the ground urban fire restorations, took turns at the microphone and slide clicker.

“We serve as a demonstration site,” Hubbs said of that targeted goal. “We can show people” burns can be conducted safely, even adjacent to structures, busy streets, parks, heavily used city trails and even golf courses.

The key is planning, planning and more planning, combined with choosing the exact best weather and wind conditions.

Nothing less will do. It all has to be perfect in so heavily occupied areas.

Proving it can be done well, safe and effectively under the constant gaze of the public, Hubbs said, yields less negative public perception.

One public element folks will always notice, added Druery: “There will be smoke. Obviously that’s a concern” when the immediately adjacent population is dense and ever present, as it is in Lincoln.

One thing city burns must have, they stressed, is visibility. The better to keep motorists, pedestrians, homes and pets from harm’s way.

The opposite of clandestine, in Lincoln, “We’re trying to call attention to our burns,” explained Hubbs, “with so many people around Lincoln” that approach is mandatory. It is accomplished, he said, with multiple temporary warning signs, parking trucks off the roadway with emergency lights flashing and public notification.

And caution is the theme for reasons other than safety, too. Political reasons. Public perception issues.

Because of the dense population and heavy media presence, “If we mess up in Lincoln,” Druery admitted, it negatively “effects everyone else in the state” who is conducting prescribed burns under public scrutiny.

For more information about prescribed burns including perhaps how a landowner might explore a burn of their own, contact Brian Teeter at bteeter@pheasantsforever.org.

Conference sponsors were: Nebraska Game and Parks, Nebraska Prescribed Fire Council, Central Platte Rangeland Alliance, UNL Extension, Loess Canyons Rangeland Alliance, Prescribed Fire Planning of Nebraska, Nebraska Grazing Lands Coalition, Nebraska Association of Natural Resources Districts, Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever, Sandhills Taskforce, Conservation Blueprint, Audubon Great Plains, Monarch Joint Venture, Great Plains Fire Science Exchange, Fontenelle Forest and Lower Platte South NRD.

Story By: Steve Moseley