NOTES ON SATURDAY SESSION ON BURN PLANNING, OBJECTIVES, THE PROS AND CONS OF FIRE USE IN LOCAL WILDLAND MANAGEMENT

Andrew Williams convened the session and took notes, about 20 people participated.

Much of Iowa supported fire dependent ecosystems, from prairies dominated by herbaceous plants to savannas and open oak woodlands dominated by relatively fire-resistant oaks, but some fire sensitive communities like maple-basswood forest were also in Iowa.

A list of reasons to use fire:

Improve forage for livestock
Increase prairie seed production post-fire
Woody plant control or suppression

Woody plants generally suffer more from fire than do herbaceous plants due to their greater above-ground investment. Some woody plants are more fire-sensitive than others. Suppression of oaks present to "grub" stage may recreate a type of habitat now very rarely encountered in Iowa. One burn may increase the problem of woody plant invasion, says Jean, using cemetery burning as a limited example. Using fire once is not very helpful, one should use it repeatedly in a planned strategy. Seedling control through burning is generally agreed to be accomplished through burning, though this is less visible, but permanent control of established woody plants is much less likely. At times, some other management tool must be applied to open up a wall of cedars, for example, so that fire can be more affectively used thereafter.

Fuel reduction as a safety precaution or to limit the vigor of future fires as a conservation precaution
Control of various noxious herbaceous plants, though timing and frequency are crucial considerations here. We heard yesterday that summer burning fosters leafy spurge. One cool season burn will probably exacerbate sweet-clover problems, but a series of carefully timed fires can control sweet-clover.
Reintroducing what we take to be a historically prominent process
Speed spring greenup for waterfowl nesting sites
Tick control, or real or traditionally held belief
Control of populations of insects that compete with us for the biomass produced
Tradition
Reduce unwanted competition in young prairie plantings
Conservation of biodiversity
Some plants may depend on intermittent fire, eg. Lithospermum latifolium in savanna
Cost: cheap and labor efficient type of management
The disturbance of fire creates patchiness in the landscape

A list of reasons why fire is perhaps innapropriate:

Risk to human life and property
Air quality
Non-fire adapted ecosystem conservation (maple basswood forest)
Poltical/neighbor deterrent. Some landowners traditionally grow trees to foster conservation so our values are not the same as those of all our neighbors
Timing and frequency can produce exactly the wrong desired result. Fen burning in dry seasons can cause peat fires that can be very damaging to the fen. Timing of spring burning can either foster or hinder smooth brome. Fall burning leads to habitat loss that some people find offensive.
Risk to biodiversity. We know little or nothing of the effects of fire on many taxa, some mentioned were reptiles, notably box turtles and snakes, snails, amphibians, insects, small mammals. Burn refugia are very important because of our ignorance. One suggestion was made: use sheets of plywood, perhaps weighted with a cinder block, scattered around the site to provide several micro-refugia cheaply and easily.
Risk to utility pole and pipelines that may be present.

Other comments that don’t fall readily into the above outline are:

Historical influence of fire operating in a broad landscape cannot be readily recreated simply by reintroducing fire. Ditching and drainage probably decrease the patchiness that may have characterized earlier fire activity. But farm fields and roads, too, can be said to increase patchiness. Probably the sweep of fire was less after settlement as the land was developed through agriculture.

We should consider as wide a range of pros and cons as we can in deciding why, when, and how to apply fire.

Historical loss of fire-dependent ecosystems is huge, little remains. The risk of using no fire vs. the risk of using fire in this context was discussed (cemetery example of Jean’s where the unburned prairie of several years is faring bewtter than where fire was once applies).

Sedges in savanna may be green all year in fire-managed sites and this may be positive in terms of limiting the effect of an individual fire.

Michelle urges that we not be calendar dependent, but that we look at the land, consider our goals and show flexibility in our use of fire. Agencies like DNR often lack this sort of flexibility per force.

LACK OF ADEQUATE BUDGETS, STAFFING, TRAINING AND KNOWLEDGABLE VOLUNTEERS AFFECT US ALL.

Squeeky wheels get the grease, and squeeking in concert can be more effective at increasing our agency budgets. There is the problem of taking agency funds from one program and shifting it to another, rather than increasing the amount of funding available over all. Professionals can lobby legally and ethically through their professional organizations. DNR staff say it’s hard to leave arrange to go to "outta state" conferences. Cindy suggests that in return for volunteering to help manage someone’s land, we might ask that a letter in support of our need for more funding be elicited from the landowner.

Farmers are extremely busy in springtime. Can we suggest other times to burn? Can we suggest other tools to use at other times when farmers can more easily find time to do this sort of work?

Rod pointed out that it took us 150 years to mess things up this badly, and it cannot be undone overnight.

Native Americans activities greatly affected our local landscape.

Generally, our lack of information on which to base our decisions and actions is deplorable. Ecosystems are not only more complicated than we know, they are more complicated than we CAN know.

Andrew observed a societal trend away from organismal biology and natural history in our school and university curricula, the trend toward subcellular processes and mathematically modelling of ecosystems has eroded curricula and if we want experts who can identify plants, insects, etc., we must have an educational system in place. Pauline has trained many locally in botany in the seed-gathering effort for Neal Smith NWR restoration work.

The cost of grassland fire runs $5-15/acre, woodland fires are more costly. As the burn size decreases, the cost of pesonnel per unit burned goes up, which causes agency people to burn more so their use of limited personnel resources looks better.

NRCS has a form on the web (check Iowa Soil Partners page on web) called "Prescribed Burnning Planning and Evaluation Form (? 33-A). This might help you.

Cindy expressed the need for a listing of what sites are prairie remnants and what sites are restorations. Another added that a listing of the restorations using local ecotype seeds vs. those using seeds from afar is also needed. DNR Forestry & Prairies and Parks & Preserves are cooperating to propose a "wild places program" registration system which will serve this need and which can provide differing levels of protection.

Who is available to do baseline inventory work, in what biotic groups? Loss of experts through retirement, need to train local volunteers.

Please provide feedback to Paul Johnson at IA DNR in support of funding permanent positions to foster prairie conservation and management, including meetings like this one and perhaps fire training. Pauline says the federal government, too, is considering increasing midcontinental grassland efforts and your input may foster this movement of resources toward prairie conservation work.

Evaluation post fire:

Objective should be measurable and effects should be measured after the fire. Permanent photo-points might help with this. Pauline spoke of Wilhelm’s conservative species index, and idea pioneered and explained in the book "Plants of the Chicago Region". A locally adapted version of this system for use in Iowa should be completed by midwinter – check with Iowa Native Plant Society.