No time to cut trees? How about a nice fire
June 8, 2022 5:19 PM Subscribe
Prescribed Burn Associations are increasing in number across the US. Prairie has been maintained by fire for thousands of years. Over the last thirty years though, cedar has increased by 600%, and trees in general are one of the larger threats to unmaintained prairie.
But before you start throwing lit matches in fields, grab your yellow nomex shirt, get your drip torch ratio right, make sure your pulaski is sharp, and that you've got your IRPG(PDF). Then get out there and start scratching a line.
Oh and Eastern Red Cedar? Not a cedar
Previously Previouslier
But before you start throwing lit matches in fields, grab your yellow nomex shirt, get your drip torch ratio right, make sure your pulaski is sharp, and that you've got your IRPG(PDF). Then get out there and start scratching a line.
Oh and Eastern Red Cedar? Not a cedar
Previously Previouslier
And in Australia, the technique is perhaps 60,000 years old.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:39 PM on June 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:39 PM on June 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
As the creator of the first previously, may I congratulate you on an excellent first post!
The main story is great, and I especially enjoyed the pulaski link. (The header on the Historical Society's Visit page is "Come on in and stay awhile." That's wonderful.)
I love the fact that, in the NPR piece, Californians are learning best practices from Midwesterners. (It's not uncommon, sadly, for people to look down on non-coastal folks, and it's lovely to see their expertise acknowledged.) And the section on why we can't just cut down the trees was great.
Also, The Great Plains Fire Science Exchange is totally the name of my next album. And Burn Boss is the name of my next band.
I'm really glad to know about Prescribed Burn Associations, and I doubt I would have run across them on my own. Thank you so much for sharing this, ockmockbock!
posted by kristi at 6:02 PM on June 8, 2022 [5 favorites]
The main story is great, and I especially enjoyed the pulaski link. (The header on the Historical Society's Visit page is "Come on in and stay awhile." That's wonderful.)
I love the fact that, in the NPR piece, Californians are learning best practices from Midwesterners. (It's not uncommon, sadly, for people to look down on non-coastal folks, and it's lovely to see their expertise acknowledged.) And the section on why we can't just cut down the trees was great.
Also, The Great Plains Fire Science Exchange is totally the name of my next album. And Burn Boss is the name of my next band.
I'm really glad to know about Prescribed Burn Associations, and I doubt I would have run across them on my own. Thank you so much for sharing this, ockmockbock!
posted by kristi at 6:02 PM on June 8, 2022 [5 favorites]
First attempt at making a post
Yay! Cool and interesting post!
posted by latkes at 6:31 PM on June 8, 2022 [4 favorites]
Yay! Cool and interesting post!
posted by latkes at 6:31 PM on June 8, 2022 [4 favorites]
My spouse does prairie restoration in Illinois and he loves participating in prescribed prairie burns, and at our last house we had a couple in our backyard, where we'd restored about 800 square feet of hyperlocal prairie. At our house it was just one firefighter and our household hose, at dawn, but it was fun anyway.
The backyard burn procedure was, call fire department, explain burn, get transferred three times to the guy who knows about burns, explain burn again, pick a day based on weather, have fireman dispatched at dawn, hose down the non-burning area around the outside, light dead prairie grasses but only if there's been a heavy dew AND there's no wind, watch burn while chatting with fireman, offer tea and donuts, hose over entire dead grass area and have fireman inspect to be sure it's all out. With the dew and the season, this was always a low, crackling burn, not big hot flames. But at the prairie preserve restorations you get some BIG hot flames!
My town had a significant forest preserve, and a bunch of that forest preserve, right by the river, was actually forest before Europeans came. But a little further away it was "prairie grove" (mix of prairie grasses and trees), and two miles from the river it was deadass tallgrass prairie, and two years ago, our local prairie restoration group cut down and burned out all the trees on what used to be the tallgrass prairie and restored it to local native prairie. People LOST THEIR MINDS because they miss the trees, but it's so amazing to have the tallgrass prairie restored! (Although, yes, you can see the trucks from the next big road over, which you could not with the trees.)
Anyway, they do prescribed burns in all three! And it's fascinating how differently the burn affects the woods, the grove, and the prairie -- all three are preserved and restored by fire, but each becomes more itself -- more wooded, more grove-y, more grassy. A healthy ecosystem restores itself to itself after fire; the fire preserves and advances it.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:10 PM on June 8, 2022 [11 favorites]
The backyard burn procedure was, call fire department, explain burn, get transferred three times to the guy who knows about burns, explain burn again, pick a day based on weather, have fireman dispatched at dawn, hose down the non-burning area around the outside, light dead prairie grasses but only if there's been a heavy dew AND there's no wind, watch burn while chatting with fireman, offer tea and donuts, hose over entire dead grass area and have fireman inspect to be sure it's all out. With the dew and the season, this was always a low, crackling burn, not big hot flames. But at the prairie preserve restorations you get some BIG hot flames!
My town had a significant forest preserve, and a bunch of that forest preserve, right by the river, was actually forest before Europeans came. But a little further away it was "prairie grove" (mix of prairie grasses and trees), and two miles from the river it was deadass tallgrass prairie, and two years ago, our local prairie restoration group cut down and burned out all the trees on what used to be the tallgrass prairie and restored it to local native prairie. People LOST THEIR MINDS because they miss the trees, but it's so amazing to have the tallgrass prairie restored! (Although, yes, you can see the trucks from the next big road over, which you could not with the trees.)
Anyway, they do prescribed burns in all three! And it's fascinating how differently the burn affects the woods, the grove, and the prairie -- all three are preserved and restored by fire, but each becomes more itself -- more wooded, more grove-y, more grassy. A healthy ecosystem restores itself to itself after fire; the fire preserves and advances it.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:10 PM on June 8, 2022 [11 favorites]
Some of my most favorite land in New Mexico burned down uncontrollably in a “prescribed” burn this year. It will never be the same again.
posted by jjray at 11:44 PM on June 8, 2022
posted by jjray at 11:44 PM on June 8, 2022
"Never" is a strong word in ecology.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 12:47 AM on June 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 12:47 AM on June 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
Setting fire to the hillsides is trad in Ireland as a way of staving off the natural ecological succession bog - heath - scrub - forest. Irish uplands are held in limbo for/by grazing sheep. But it is impossible to manage this state only by controlling the number of sheep not least because most uplands are held in common by farmers with both selfish and community interests. So whoomph! burn off the woody heather (Erica cinerea, Erica tetralix, Calluna vulgaris), gorse Ulex europaeus, blueberry Vaccinium myrtillus and bracken fern Pteridium aquilinum and let the sheep get fat on the fresh green shoots. That's the theory; but plants extract mineral micronutrients from the [sub]soil and, with grazing, these get deposited 💩topside. With burning, this hard-won limiting resource is delivered to the next count[r]y in a hot plume. Not to mention the topsoil microbiome, beetles, caterpillars.
In current thinking [really only the last 5-10 years] The Man frowns upon the practice and it is effectively illegal to DIY a burn. At the end of April person or persons unknown started a fire on our common which turned scores of hectares [we're not in Kansas so this seems a lot and is ~10-15% of the common] into a smoking Mordor. I went up the hill with neighbours to contain the burn with fire-beaters [far too rough for quadbikes]. But tbh my mostly elderly farmer neighbours weren't putting in a lot of effort because their old-style reality differed from mine and The Man's. Viva la microbiota!
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:12 AM on June 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
In current thinking [really only the last 5-10 years] The Man frowns upon the practice and it is effectively illegal to DIY a burn. At the end of April person or persons unknown started a fire on our common which turned scores of hectares [we're not in Kansas so this seems a lot and is ~10-15% of the common] into a smoking Mordor. I went up the hill with neighbours to contain the burn with fire-beaters [far too rough for quadbikes]. But tbh my mostly elderly farmer neighbours weren't putting in a lot of effort because their old-style reality differed from mine and The Man's. Viva la microbiota!
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:12 AM on June 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
Excellent post! That museum site is very interesting and I'm looking forward to exploring the rest of the links but the word "Pulaski" caught my eye.
I worked fire crew clean-up one summer. My most memorable experience was causally swinging my Pulaski up on to my shoulder preparing to saunter off like Joe Cool, but the handle slipped through my hands and I whacked myself a good one on the back of the head with the adze. Yeah I was so cool.
posted by evilmomlady at 4:08 AM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
I worked fire crew clean-up one summer. My most memorable experience was causally swinging my Pulaski up on to my shoulder preparing to saunter off like Joe Cool, but the handle slipped through my hands and I whacked myself a good one on the back of the head with the adze. Yeah I was so cool.
posted by evilmomlady at 4:08 AM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Thanks for this. I didn't realize quite how invasive the Eastern Red Cedar could be if not kept in check.
posted by wierdo at 5:24 AM on June 9, 2022
posted by wierdo at 5:24 AM on June 9, 2022
"Never" is a strong word in ecology.
Today's winner for Glib Remark of the Day.
I think we can all extol the wisdom of the practice without dismissing the result when the practice goes really wrong. Tailoring the environment has risks, and as such, there has to be constant assessment of the wisdom, as it's not uncommon for people to bite off more than they can chew.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:31 AM on June 9, 2022
Today's winner for Glib Remark of the Day.
I think we can all extol the wisdom of the practice without dismissing the result when the practice goes really wrong. Tailoring the environment has risks, and as such, there has to be constant assessment of the wisdom, as it's not uncommon for people to bite off more than they can chew.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:31 AM on June 9, 2022
My wife has done a lot of work with prescribed burns, though we don't have much prairie in Maryland. Fire really does seem to be an amazingly effective restoration tool in a variety of environments. The burns she has been involved with have helped revive everything from rare orchids on the eastern shore to rare pines in the western mountains. (The pine vid has some neat info about the practicalities of burning, but the time-lapse in the first article is dang hard-to-beat neat.)
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 5:32 AM on June 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 5:32 AM on June 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
Today's winner for Glib Remark of the Day.
There's a still open thread about the NM fires if people want to make non-sensical comments about ecology.
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 6:49 AM on June 9, 2022
There's a still open thread about the NM fires if people want to make non-sensical comments about ecology.
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 6:49 AM on June 9, 2022
Excellent post! I have my IRPG in the drawer next to me and just qualified for my FFT2 Wildland Firefighter certification last summer. Rx fire has so much potential as a ecological land management tool.
posted by hessie at 2:28 PM on June 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by hessie at 2:28 PM on June 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
The Pulaski is by far my favorite tool for this kind of work, they haven't changed it in 100 years, because its damn near perfect.
If you ever want to just swing around something satisfying get one and give it a try.
posted by stilgar at 1:59 PM on June 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
If you ever want to just swing around something satisfying get one and give it a try.
posted by stilgar at 1:59 PM on June 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
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posted by ockmockbock at 5:30 PM on June 8, 2022 [13 favorites]