Spring is upon us and prescribed fire season will be here and gone in the blink of an eye.
Fire scares the heck out of most people and it should. Utilizing fire to benefit wildlife habitat is not something you can pick up in a weekend or two.
I have been active in prescribed fire projects for almost 20 years. Still today, I have a very high respect for fire, and this is the primary reason that in all of the fires I have participated, I have never had to call a volunteer fire department to save my behind.
There are many reasons for this, but the primary one is that I never light a fire if conditions are not just perfect. As a result, I don’t get as many prescribed fires done as those professional, paid-for-service, organized operations do. They have enough equipment and manpower to be able to overcome some situations where the wind might be too strong or the difficulty index makes it too hard for me and my band of volunteers to handle.
Prescribed fire is poorly understood by most people. All they see and understand is that the fire burns up the grassland birds that are trying to nest in late April and early May. It is true that some nests get destroyed, but only in rare cases does the hen perish.
Pheasants, which are my passion, usually build a nest in mid-May and then lay, incubate and hatch a clutch in the second week of June. There are always a small percentage that start a little earlier and those that start later.
Lighting a fire to wildlife habitat can be akin to fertilizing your yard, as I covered in a recent column. The best explanation for spring burning is “short-term pain for long-term gain.”
The few nests that are lost to spring burning in most cases will be recovered when the hen nests again in nearby property. This is why you try to never burn the entire area at one time.
Burning 25 percent of a spot each year in a four-year rotation keeps the habitat the most robust it can be. This allows the carry capacity of the property to increase.
Carry capacity is the total amount of animals a spot can provide for. Grasslands in great shape can result in reproduction efforts significantly higher than in lower quality grasslands.
All of the science supports prescribed habitat fires for the total overall increase in wildlife populations. Fire as a management tool is highly desired but has never been used to its maximum potential. This is because the burning season is so short and there are very few people qualified or confident enough to use it.
The best prescribed burn is one where the grass is so green it will hardly carry the fire. The greened-up species are usually undesirable, and by burning late, you set that back and help the desired grasses.
Later is usually better.
The downside to a late burn is that any acres enrolled in a Farm Bill program like CRP cannot be burned after May 15, as that is considered the primary nesting season.
If you only have one burn to do, you can get blown out, rained out or help-deficient out and still get done before May 15. If you have 20 burns to complete, you don’t have the luxury of waiting for the perfect conditions for each burn.
You can’t wake up one morning in April and decide you want to do a burn. Preparatory work for these efforts is done in the fall.
A tractor and a mower are used to mow a path 15 feet wide, and the debris is usually moved off to the side. This allows the grasses in the burn break to green up early and act as a fire break as the fire won’t easily cross these areas. You will need a burn permit, and in my county these are free and last for two years.
You have to call in to the law enforcement dispatch and let them know when you ignite your fire. That way, they won’t send the fire department to the scene when the neighbor calls in with a smoke sighting. When the fire is extinguished, you call them again to let them know you are done.
One of the coolest sights is watching a prescribed fire that is protected all the way around and burns into the night without the need of much oversight.
I did one last year that ended at 1 a.m. and looked like lava flows in the darkness. The next time you see a spring prescribed fire or hear someone complaining about them, you can teach them the science and biology behind this practice. Controlled fires can be wildlife’s best friend.
Scott Rall, Worthington, is a habitat conservationist, avid hunting and fishing enthusiast and is president of Nobles County Pheasants Forever. He can be reached at scottarall@gmail.com. or on Twitter @habitat champion.