Grassland Management With Prescribed Fire

This circular provides an overview of the use of fire in grassland management. It describes the history and importance of fire in the grassland ecosystem, how plants respond to fire, and the uses and potential benefits of prescribed fire. It also summarizes fire planning and legal and safety considerations. And finally, it provides guidance on some special uses of fire. when burning conditions would have favored smaller, less intense fires. However, more recent information indicates that Indians burned extensively in all seasons and that most pre-settlement landscapes and vegetation resulted from human activity. Indians used fire for hunting, warfare and signaling, and to reduce insect populations around villages. Many other fires resulted from untended campfires or were set simply for entertainment. When fires were set to attract wildlife to the resulting fresh new growth, Indians were deliberately using fire much as land managers do today. Pre-settlement fire interacted closely with grazing. Not only did wildlife seek out freshly burned areas, but burned areas that were then heavily grazed would tend to burn less intensely or not at all in subsequent fires. Meanwhile, areas that escaped fire would be grazed less, allowing an accumulation of fuel that would promote intense fires later. Grazing and fire existed in a simple but effective rotation in both time and space. Climate, including such factors as periodic drought, seasonal dryness and nearly constant winds, permitted fires to burn extensively and helped to suppress woody vegetation that would otherwise have developed. When Europeans came to the Great Plains, they brought with them the concept of property and attitudes toward fire formed in densely populated Europe or the eastern United States. To them, fire was a scourge that destroyed property, bared the soil and sometimes killed. With such a tradition, fire was not used as a land management tool, with the notable exception of the Kansas Flint Hills, where fires have been deliberately set since the 1880s. Burning in the Flint Hills was recognized early as a means to increase steer weight gains because it improved grass palatability, quality and yield, and halted woody plant expansion. The role of fire in manipulating plant communities was not critically examined until the 1960s. Fire was Figure 1. Fire was one of the primary forces that created and maintained the central grasslands. To a large extent, the fires and resulting grasslands were the deliberate work of Indian land managers.