Burning hubris: It is as if fire gathers our small errors, our shortcuts, our complacencies; and gives us trouble for our hubris. Did we fill all the gas tanks on all our pumps? Did we check the water filters on the piston pumps this morning? Are the fire breaks well prepared? Is the layout of the burn unit too complicated?
Redundancy: We have multiple UTVs so any one UTV can go down. We have a support truck with various tools and a big tank of water to refill. We have a fire scout whose job is to help us watch the back lines. We build in redundancy to increase safety and get more fire on the ground.
We need more than fire: Degraded habitats that we burn, often need seed and brush management.
Holland Prairie burn March 12. 165-acres
The bottom line:
Number of burn days was 20, which is a limiting factor.
We burned 2,225-acres of Nachusa on 22 burn units
We assisted on 596-acres on 6 units.
Average size of a burn unit was 101-acres with a unit as small as 4-acres and big as 300.
Average crew size was 12.
The Soderholm/Vassallo fire on March 13. Paul Soderholm delivers us an order of Esmeralda’s tacos. We burn for tacosAfter the burn boss gives the general briefing, each Line Boss meets with their crew to discuss logistics.Kevin has been a volunteer burn crew member, and land steward, at Nachusa for about 35 years. He knows prescribed fire.Community: A burger and fries at the end of a long day is more than a meal.Nachusa’s Tyler Pellegrini is our new Restoration Ecologist at Nachusa. Here with DNR’s Russ Blogg who was our burn boss on two days of fire at Franklin Creek Natural Area.This March it appears an arson started a wildfire at Green River Conservation Area, which is 25 minutes south of Nachusa. Bill and Molly responded to a request for help from DNR’s Russ Blogg. The winds were strong and dry, but we worked safely from interior lanes for several hours. This untouched photo is as the sun set and the glow of the fire dominated the lens.For dual wood power posts we often do something as above. We park between the posts and soak a circle of the grass. Then use a drip torch to slowly ignite a circle of fire, letting the fire move away from the circle.
I have been walking around units we have burned this year to see how effective the fires were. I assume you all do the same. Some areas blacken, the exotic shrubs will be set back, the floristic quality will improve a bit. And then you walk through some of our natural areas that are in very poor condition. Yesterday, I ran a brush mulcher through one such site and opened it up so easily, but there are so many such sights. Let us be bolstered by Aldo Leopold’s summary, “That the situation is hopeless should not prevent us from doing our best.”
My daughter was telling me about how they need a Commercial Drivers License, CDL, to haul two UTVs on one trailer to their prescribed fires. I told her that there may be a way to not need a CDL, but they are likely using CDL sized trailers. This sent me down a rabbit hole of research and I thought I would write a post to summarize what I re-learned. This is a good post for those who tow things.
Why not get a Commercial Drivers License? Most people don’t want to be bothered with the book testing, driver test, and cost involved. If you have a CDL setup you limit who can drive, which can be a logistical bottleneck. If you are towing just UTVs to fires you can likely trailer one UTV at a time with a non CDL setup.
Yes, the trailer above is CDL because the manufacturer rates it with a big Gross Vehicle Weight Rating, GVWR. Even without seeing the sticker on the trailer that states its GVWR a police officer observes it has two axles and eight tires. This means it is rated for heavy loads. But you don’t go by whether it has dual tires or not, but look at the sticker on the trailer.
This trailer above you don’t need a CDL. So what is the difference?
The Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) refers to the maximum weight while loaded at which a vehicle or trailer can safely operate, as determined by the manufacturer. When you add the truck GVWR and trailer GVWR together, if that weight is over 26,000 pounds then you need a Commercial Drivers License to operate it. If caught with a CDL setup on a standard drivers license you can get ticketed, and your trailer idled until a CDL driver shows up to drive it away.
Above, this half ton 1500 Ram has a GVWR of 6,800 pounds, noted from a sticker inside the door. But this truck can only pull a total of 10,660 pounds reads the manual in the glove box. That 10,660 pounds includes the trailer weight empty and its payload. It can easily pull one UTV with a pump loaded with water. I will get back to this point later.
This much bigger 3500 truck with diesel motor, heavy duty towing package and heavy duty transmission, and dual rear wheels has the same GVWR of 6,800 pounds as the little 1500 Ram. But the owners manual states this truck can tow about twice as much weight at 22,600 pounds.
So if we are trying to stay under 26,000 pounds of GVWR: Notice the gooseneck trailer behind this brown truck above. That trailer has a GVWR of 20,000 pounds, the truck has a GVWR of 6,800 pounds So added together we are at 26,800 pounds. This is just into the weight of a CDL setup, which starts at 26,000 pounds GVWR.
That USDOT sticker on the door suggests this is likely a CDL setup. You can be driving this truck and trailer down the road with an empty trailer and you are still supposed to have a CDL. The CDL 26,000 pound limit is based on the GVWR, rather than what you have on the trailer. Now, I doubt you will have trouble from the police pulling an empty trailer or with something light weight like a UTV.
This trailer above we saw previously has a GVWR of 10,000 pounds. So you add that to the 6,800 pounds GVWR of either of the two trucks above and you are at 16,800 pounds. This is well under 26,000 so you don’t need a CDL. Remember the manufacturers decide the approximate GVWR of a truck and trailer.
This trailer comes in lengths up to 24 feet long which would fit two UTVs in length, and their weight of 1,500 pounds each, or 3,000 pounds for two, would not exceed the trailer’s 10,000 pound limit. Our 1500 Ram can pull 10,600 pounds. The two UTVs would weigh 3,000 and the trailer a few thousand pounds so the truck can pull them. You would still appreciate a bigger truck but the half ton can do it, but don’t push it. A half ton truck can pull one UTV easy. Two UTVs is asking for trouble.
Ok, so I covered the CDL and its relationship to the 26,000 pound limit for GVWR.
But there is more to this.
Don’t put a skid loader on a light weight trailer as in this example:
So you go to the dealer and buy a 10,000 pound GVWR trailer, hook it up to your 6,800 GVWR truck and then load it with your 12,000 pound skid loader. Is this legal? No, nor safe! A 10,000 GVWR is the trailer actual weight empty plus the load you put on it adding up to 10,000 pounds. Let’s say the trailer empty weighs 2,000 pounds so you have only 8,000 pounds you can haul on this 10,000 GVWR trailer. So your 12,000 pound skid loader is 4,000 pounds too heavy for this trailer. This is not safe or legal. Your trailer weight and cargo can not exceed the GVWR of the trailer.
Let’s say you have a CDL. So you think you are clever so you hook up your 1500 Ram to a heavy duty trailer with a 20,000 GVWR. Is this legal?. You are pulling a heavy duty trailer that is heavy empty and then you have two UTVs with water. And you only have a half ton, 1500 Ram. The manual in the glovebox says your 1500 can only pull 10,600 pounds. One UTV weights 1,500 pounds with pump loaded with water, so two UTVs weigh 3,000. The empty trailer may weigh 5,000 pounds. (I notice the trailer manufacturers do not give the empty weight of their trailers, so you can guess or go to a weigh station.). So 5,000 plus 3,000 is 8,000 pounds. So your half ton truck can pull this load. You are legal.. I would not pull two UTVs with a half-ton truck.
Now here is a nice trailer for a 1500 truck. The trailer is mostly light weight aluminum, aluminum deck, two axles, with trailer brakes, and a ramp. The GVWR is 7,000 pounds. The trailer weighs perhaps 1,500 pounds (the trailer sticker does not state the empty weight) so it can carry a load of 5,500 pounds (7,000 minus 1,500 pounds). The UTV with its pumper tank full of water weighs about 1,500 pounds, so you are way under the load limit of the trailer. (In fact a single axle trailer could carry this light load.) And as we saw above this 1500 Ram can pull a maximum of 10,600 pounds so you are also good on the total weight your truck can pull.
So a half ton truck can easily pull one UTV pumper unit.
Trailer axle capacities: This little trailer below is a nice setup because it is easy to tow. It is short at twenty feet long, and easy to load and unload and strap down. It is easy to store when you are not using it because it is not a long trailer. It is easier to drive in traffic.
This trailer has two 7,000 pound axles. Is this heavy duty enough for a 14,000 pound skid loader with mulcher head? Nope. If you have two 7,000 pound axles you add them to get 14,000 pounds and subtract about 5,000 pounds for the weight of the empty trailer. So this trailer’s axles can only carry an additional 9,000 pounds. The big skid loaders with no tool weight about 12,000 so the trailer axles of this trailer are taking way too much weight. We currently have retired this trailer from skid loader hauling. We will trade it in for a trailer that will have the heavy duty axles, perhaps two 12,000 pound axles, which is a 24,000 pound trailer. The trailer will otherwise be the same.
So this has been a long article. A few summary points.
Towing a single UTV on a proper size class of trailer can be done with a half ton truck.
Don’t let newbies tow anything without instructions.
Walk around the truck and trailer to look for mistakes. Check lights, trailer brakes, safety chains, and tire pressures.
Towing Skid Loaders typically requires a CDL and CDL sized equipment. Don’t let novices tow such heavy equipment.
Skid loaders have become bigger and heavier with more horsepower to run brush mowers and such. A skid loader with a brush mower attachment might weigh 12,000 to 15,000 pounds! Your trailer needs to be rated to hold this weight. Your truck needs to be rated to pull this weight plus the weight of the trailer.
Towing is challenging. Read your manual. Poke around for good tutorials on the internet. Leave me comments to improve this post.
Mike Saxton – Manager of Ecological Restoration and Land Stewardship – Shaw Nature Reserve – Gray Summit, MO
Over the course of ecological time, large portions of the Midwest have been a shifting mosaic of prairie, savanna and open woodlands. 500 wet years might have meant less fire on the landscape, which allowed trees to establish in new places and in greater abundance. 500 dry years might have pushed the gradient in the other direction with more intensive fire limiting the establishment and persistence of trees in a prevailingly grass dominated ecotone.
In their seminal paper The Demise of Fire and “Mesophication” of Forests in the Eastern United States, Nowacki and Abrams described how the demise of fire has led to “a cascade of compositional and structural changes whereby open lands (grasslands, savannas, and woodlands) succeeded to closed-canopy forests, followed by the eventual replacement of fire-dependent plants by shade-tolerant, fire-sensitive vegetation.”
We can’t burn our way out of a century of tree establishment in our formerly open and sun-lit natural communities. This is where hack and squirt can be a fast and effective treatment. In areas where you have large diameter oaks and hickories, thousands of small maples, virtually no oak-recruitment, and a bare, sun-starved woodland floor, this can be a great approach.
We like to use the Fiskars hatchet with the fiberglass handle. The 2-liter Solo hand sprayer works well. The smaller squeeze bottle runs out of herbicide too soon. We do our treatments in the dormant season, usually starting in November and going until February. We use JLB basal oil and triclopyr ester (Garlon 4, Remedy, Element). Typically, we mix in bulk with 12.5G of oil mixed with 2.5G of herbicide.
The area pictured above (with glade in the background) was treated in December of 2020. Small trees might require 6 or 7 hatchet strikes. The more thoroughly the tree is frilled, the higher chance the tree dies.
Photo credit to Matt Arndt for the above picture. Matt (contractor here in Missouri – Matt’s Healthy Woods & Wildlife) recommends 1 hatchet strike for each 1 inch in diamter.
Above – treated in December 2020. Typically, the tree will leaf out poorly the first growing season. It usually won’t leaf out the second growing season. By the third growing season, fine twigs and branches drop. And by the forth growing season, the trees break off at the hatchet marks. In the picture, you can see that fire carried thoroughly through the area. Small diameter trees crumbling over a few years has not led to major fuel loading.
Large diameter trees are tougher to kill and take longer to crumble, but hack and squirt can be effective even in this large size class.
Yellow polygons represent 100 acres of treated acres with 240 staff hours. We targeted , perhaps, 70% of the maples.
This treatment is fast and effective. I like that the trees slowly crumble. I also like that you can make return trips in subsequent years and thin more until you reach your desired outcomes.
February is not the ideal time for us to prepare fire breaks. Frozen ant mounds are hard to mow. The mowed vegetation does not dry well if you want to rake and blow it. A tractor with no cab makes you shiver. But we were short handed this fall and [insert various excuses]. We try to finish fire break preparation before winter.
Does anyone want to call this a good fire break?
Now that is a fire break. These wide fire breaks look about right when they have fire on one side, smoke streaming across, and your eyes are watering.
Followers of this blog will have seen that Nachusa uses a hay rake to move the mowed veg to one side. Then we use a tractor powered leaf blower to blow the windrows 5 to 10 yards out.
Above is a fire break mowed once there and once back. This section of line is the downwind fire break and there is a meadow adjacent and then further down wind a big oak woods. I want to keep the fire inside the box. So…
I tracked back with a skid loader and made three more passes and had it wide enough. Then I drove the hay rake to this back 40 section and raked the veg to the left side. I can see the windrow there. That day Molly drove by with the leaf blower and the windrows were flying.
These efforts will make the fire day go better. We have tens of miles of fire breaks so we have to use tractors to get the job done. Whatever tools you got, fire breaks make or break you.
Join us in Lawrence, Kansas, to share insights from grassland restoration work, research, and outreach while experiencing this unique ecotone region. Small remnant prairies in eastern Kansas host exceptional levels of plant diversity, and the combination of conservation and working lands create a heterogeneous landscape relevant to many restoration opportunities and challenges. Local experts will share their knowledge of ethnobotany, plant ecology, biodiversity, microbiomes, fungi, and feedback in soil in the context of restoring grasslands. A field tour of the KU Field Station will showcase a medicinal plant garden; research on the interactive effects of climate, mycorrhizae, and biodiversity on restored prairie; and a participatory art experience that applies cultural burning in a restored grassland.
Details and registration information coming in May 2025.
Mike Saxton – Shaw Nature Reserve – Gray Summit, MO
Last week we sowed around 1,200 pounds of seed from 302 species over 46 acres of ground at Shaw Nature Reserve. Most of that seed went into a 42 acre planting as part of our 120-acre, 3-year Wolf Run Grassland Restoration Project. Here are some lessons learned from this year’s sowing.
Sowing in snow – is it possible to sow seed without snow? Of course. You can follow the rows if you are planting into corn stubble. You can use cones or flags if you’re planting into bean stubble. You can use GPS apps (which, of course, have course resolution, usually something like 10 – 30 ft if using a cell phone). But snow allows you to sow seed very evenly and methodically.
Operator can be very efficient and can avoid underlap and overlap. Sowing seed on snow allows you to assess coverage and seeding rate.
If not sowing into snow, consider driving your seeding unit over clean white paper to see the seeding rate and coverage:
We used 3 different seeders to plant 42-acres:
Vicon Pendulum – Tractor PTO – I ran this in Low-4 at 1,600 RPM. Most of my passes were at an aperture between 18 and 32. Pro: I love that the operator can easily open and close the aperture from the driver’s seat. It’s very nimble and has a good, even spread. Using a tractor is great because you can set the throttle and maintain a very consistent ground speed. The seeder is really hard to clog (our unit has an agitator) Cons: it’s cold with no cab! Also, the PTO continues to sling seed if you stop or slow down (unlike the pull behind units). The Mules can hold 5 barrels of seed, so you’re set for a few hours of seeding. With the Vicon, you have to refill frequently from a nearby trailer.
Nice tracks, even converage of seed. Vicon is now under the Kubota brand. A single pass with the aperture open to 24, Nice, even coverage.
Drop Seeders –
15ft wide International. Brought it for $750 or so off craigslist. Pulled by a Kawasaki mule pro fx. Most runs were at 70% open aperture. Pros: it is wide and covers a lot of ground. High ground clearance. Only drops seed when you’re moving. Offers a pretty uniform pattern. Holds about 2.5 barrels of seed. Cons: with tires, it’s 17ft wide! We have gates and culverts through/over which it cannot traverse. So we have to haul it out on a trailer and unloader/reload with a skid loader. Lots of effort to get it out and sowing ready.
With tires, 17ft wide!Big toothed auger really moves the seed.
10ft wide Gandy. Bought if off Craigslist for $350. Very good condition, hand been stored inside. Came with new tires. Pro: at only 12 feet wide with tires, it easily passes through gates, over bridges and culverts. Fairly nimble, can navigate around trees. Con: I did not know when I purchased this that it is set up for pelleted, granular fertilizer. It does not have the big toothed auger. It really does not push through the chaffy seed like we want. Even with the aperture full open, not enough seed comes out. Possible fix: we’re going to affix some wide, sturdy zip ties to the auger and snip them short (1in) so that they’re stiff and rigid. We hope this will help push the seed out of the bottom of the seeder.
Auger not designed for fluffy, chaff-filled mix. Better suited for granular fertilizer.
Seed Filler – if you’ve ever bought pure live seed from a seed vendor, you then face the question of how to cut it, what filler to use, how do you make a small volume of pure seed cover many acres.
Last year we got some “seed trash” from a seed vendor. The “trash” is all of the chaff left over from their cleaning process. It’s a byproduct that does not have a lot of value to them. Pro: often times you can get it for free. Lots of volume, which is important if you’re trying to stretch out pure seed. Con: there is no guarantee that you do not get unwanted species like ashy sunflower, Johnson grass or lots of big bluestem or indian grass. Also, the “trash” can be really stemmy and you might have to process it further so that it’s clean/small enough to pass through your seeder.
Compass plant “trash”. Here I screen out the thickest stems (in pile on left). A lot of labor to net a relatively small amount of seed.
This year we purchased dried distiller’s grain from a big ag services company. 2,600 pounds for $300. Two cubic yard super sacks. Pro: not dusty at all. Even, uniform texture. Passed very easily through our seeders. Cons: very heavy! A “normal” barrel of milled mixed seed weights something like 50 pounds. Mixed seed with the distiller’s grain weighed around 100lbs. Took two people to load the seed into seeders. The material is very dense and sometimes settled to the bottom of the seeders maybe more than a fluffy chaffy might have. Did we get an uneven sowing?
Next year we might consider using rice hulls. Should be much lighter and still pretty cheap.
Mixing seed
Concrete floor is best. Mixing on a tarp works. Could we have used a skid loader bucket to churn seed? Maybe. Are there other ways to mix seed other than shovels and pitch forks, probably. Wear a mask and have exhausts fans!! Always, always label things clearly.
The last year we purchased a knife mulcher and have been comparing it to our 15 year old hammer mulcher. This post is to compare knife vs hammer mulchers for these expensive attachments.
Link to a 2 minute time lapse video of a hammer mulcher clearing small brush to show off a treasure: https://youtu.be/6SrNRwR49tY
Above is a Cat 110 horsepower 299 D3XE skid steer we use with a new Denis Cimaf DAF-180D brand knife mulcher. You can see some of the 27 knives there which are bolted to the rotor. Note the thick ribs that go around the rotor. The ribs keep the knives from grabbing too much of a bite of the wood. Like on a chainsaw chain the rakers in front of the cutters keep the knives from grabbing the wood and stopping the saw abruptly (which leads to kickback in the case of a chainsaw). Without the ribs the knives would grab say a stump and stop instantly, causing a lot of stress to the machine. The ribs keeps the rotor spinning fast so the knives can slice off wood in bite sized pieces. The dealer claims the hydraulic motor that spins the rotor is also well designed to spin fast and recover its speed when it does get slowed down. The rotor does slow down when you are cutting. There is a limit to the magic.
Above shows a brand new knife and a partially worn knife. We tend to sharpen our knives about every 8 hours of cutting.
Above shows a typical result. Minimal ground disturbance and small wood chips.
Above, the knife mulcher makes a fine mulch. The knives can clear more habitat because of this clean cutting. This style mulcher cuts very fast. It also looks tidy.
Above is a brand new knife and a very worn down knife. There is a day and night difference in the performance of a sharp vs a dull knife, similar to a chainsaw chain. The knives are dulled by rocks, fence posts, and I assume a bit from dirt. We have had a few teeth get broken from encountering hard objects. The knives cost about $30 a piece, so you want to sharpen them until they are used up.
Above I am sharpening knives using the sharpener supplied with the purchase of the mulcher. This sharpener has a powerful two stroke motor that is spinning a 3M brand of very course sand paper. The sanding paper disc lasts a long time. The teeth can be sharpened in about 15 to 20 minutes. The sharpener is loud and we leave the shop door open to vent the shop. We also grease the zerks and do other work on the skid loader.
Above shows my tools splayed out as I change a bunch of worn out knives. The nuts are held on with 400 hundred pounds delivered by a large torque wrench. To get the bolts loose it takes a breaker bar and extension tube and your body weight. Once loose, then you can switch to the cordless nut driver. This Denis Cimaf mulcher came with clear instructions and a kit of tools needed. The teeth can last for a few to several months, or a few can be trashed on the first junk you run into.
Above shows a damaged tool holder, the part that holds the knife. This is a bummer. I mowed into some buried two inch thick steel junk and it tore off the knife, broke the bolt, and bent the holder. The mulcher has been down ten days now as I wait to get a welding shop to fix it. The welder will weld some bead here and grind some metal off there, and the bolt hole is in the wrong angle. I don’t know how they fix the bolt hole. A mess. If they can’t fix it then they use a cutting torch and remove the holder and weld in a new one which I have in stock, and hopefully the rotor is still balanced. I had this happen once to a hammer mulcher, and maybe it won’t happen again, but…so it goes. Are knife mulchers prone to this damage? Could be.
Hammer Mulcher:
Above is hammer style brush mulcher. Those hammers are tipped with carbide, the twin V you see on the ends. This design can take a lot of punishment from hitting rocks and abandoned junk. This is a big advantage to this hammer style.
Using the hammer mulcher I mowed this abandoned implement. The hammers showed no damage but I tore this junk in several pieces. Would the knife mulcher take this abuse?
Above is a fence post mowed into pieces by the hammer mulcher. No harm done.
Above, the hammer mulcher leaves a bit more of a rough mulch. The hammer mulcher takes longer to mulch trees. Mowing shrubs is about the same with either mulcher.
Bottom line advice on knife vs hammer mulchers:
Both are expensive.
The hammer mulcher is good for sites with rocks and abandoned junk.
The knife mulcher is very productive, cutting through wood much faster.
The knife mulcher needs sharpening every 8 hours or so, and knives replaced at times. Do you have a shop to get out of the weather to do this? You can tough it outside, but you might be wishing you had those hammers instead.
Don’t trade in your old hammer mulcher. We have a 15 year old Fecon and it is built to last for a long time. We currently are using our hammer mulcher on a tract that has a lot of abandoned metal junk, and we will use the knife mulcher when we get to cleaner ground.
Above, knife mulcher is clearing invasive honeysuckle and small trees from an oak savanna. Note minimal ground disturbance.
Link to a 2 minute time lapse video of a hammer mulcher clearing small brush to show off a treasure: https://youtu.be/6SrNRwR49tY
By: Julianne Mason, Ecological Management Supervisor, Forest Preserve District of Will County, Illinois
We have been using ESRI’s Field Maps app on our cell phones for natural resource management and monitoring data collection, and LOVING IT! For ecological management data, we have data layers and maps for invasive species treatments and observations, seed collection areas, native seed/plugs/woodies planted (areas and associated lists), prescribed burns, and deer culling. For monitoring data, we have wildlife, plant, and invertebrate observations, photo point monitoring, rare plant monitoring, turtle tracking data, small mammal trapping data, grassland bird monitoring, deer census data, and various other data sets. I absolutely love having so much good, organized, easily accessible ecological management information riding around in my pocket while I’m out in our preserves.
When was the last time this area was burned? … What did we seed here and when (species and seeding rates)? … When was the last time xxx species was observed here? … Where are the endangered turtles brumating? …
It’s great to have easy access to all this information in the field, and I think it helps us to make better, more informed decisions as ecologists and natural resource managers.
Paper maps and data collection in the old days (left). My favorite maps and data layers in the Field Maps app on my phone these days (right). So much great information is now available via the phone in my pocket!
As I mentioned in the first part of the post on prescribed burn monitoring, we have been using the Field Maps app to easily collect burn severity monitoring data as well as to document our prescribed burns. We collect the burn severity data from our permanent photo point locations. These permanent photo points are part of our rapid assessment vegetation monitoring, which tracks plant community changes over time. In the GIS structure, the burn monitoring table is related to the photo point locations.
When we add burn monitoring data, we use pre-established drop downs to select the appropriate fire severity category and enter values for burn coverage and char height. Then, we take a photo through the app which links to that monitoring event and photo point location. It’s very user-friendly and fast!
Screen shots from my phone of burn severity monitoring data collected within ESRI’s Field Maps app.
We also use Field Maps to document our prescribed burns completed. We can either copy the shape of an existing burn unit, or drawn in a new polygon to depict the area burned, and then enter information about the burn using the app. Our burn report includes basic data about the burn (e.g., unit name, date burned, burn boss name), weather data (e.g., temp, wind speed and direction, relative humidity, days since last precip), burn implementation data (crew size, start and end times, notes), wildlife mortalities and search effort, and fire effects (community type, flame lengths, percent burned, notes).
More screen shots from the Field Maps app on my phone for data entry of a prescribed burn completed.
In addition to using Field Maps for burn data collection, we have the following reference information loaded into our burn maps: burn notifications (contact names, agencies, phone numbers), fire districts, fire station locations, utility poles, pipeline locations, hazard locations, deer stand locations, fire break locations and status, way point locations, brush pile locations, prior burn history, preserve boundaries, trails, and waterway locations. So much great information!! My personal favorite is that I can tap on a dispatch phone number at the end of a long burn day when my eyes are full of smoke and not working well, and it automatically calls the number without me having to (mis)dial it! Yes, we are absolutely loving using Field Maps for prescribed burns.
Burn notifications are incorporated in our prescribed burn map in the Field Maps app. It’s fabulous to have all this data at our fingertips in the field!
Like any good system for data collection, it’s key to have a well structured and organized framework. Our data framework started with geodatabases created in ArcMap/ ArcPro that were published to ArcGIS online and then configured for field data entry. Field Maps makes the interface for configuring and using it in the field intuitive and easy. Our specific data categories, drop down lists, and information collected may not be precisely applicable to your organization, but in Field Maps they can be customized to meet your needs. I highly recommend using Field Maps to enter and access prescribed burn information!
We have upgraded our job description and increased the job category. So skip last weeks posting. Here is the text.
Nachusa Grasslands Restoration Ecologist (CP VI) – 55997 – The Restoration Ecologist develops, manages, and advances conservation programs, plans, and methods for small to medium scale geographic areas. The Ecologist addresses critical threats to natural systems and individual species, fosters cross-site learning among conservation community, and supplies conservation planning teams with site or landscape level information relevant to the planning process. Additional tasks include activities associated with bison management, interfacing with scientific research, along with maintaining and setting up for events for visitors and members, repairing and towing equipment, and mentoring others in various tasks. Financial responsibility may include working within a budget to complete projects, negotiating and contracting with vendors, assisting with budget development and fundraising targets. This position is onsite at Nachusa Grasslands near Dixon, IL and this position will close once a strong applicant pool is identified. For more details and to apply, please visit https://careers.nature.org/ and search for Nachusa or Job ID 55997.
Part 2 – Why Bother Doing Prescribed Burn Monitoring
By: Julianne Mason, Ecological Management Supervisor, Forest Preserve District of Will County, Illinois
The ecological effects of prescribed burns can vary a lot depending on seasonality, frequency, and fire intensity. In recent years, we have been using a standardized protocol to monitor the intensity of prescribed burns. See Part 1 of this blog post for details. Basically, it combines taking post-burn photos from permanent photo point locations with recording the percent burn coverage, average char height, and fire intensity category in the vegetation and substrate layers. By doing standardized monitoring to characterize burn intensity, it gives us a more nuanced way to assess how prescribed burns are affecting plant communities.
Prescribed burns can vary a lot in intensity depending on weather conditions (relative humidity, temperature, wind speed), fuel moisture levels, fuel model type (grassland vs woodland), and firing techniques (backing, flanking, or headfires).
I wish we had started using a standardized protocol to assess fire severity decades ago. Here’s why: one of the most interesting and fun projects of my career was to do a 20-year repeat of a 1996 photo point monitoring study. It was a landscape-scale scavenger hunt combined with an ecologically interesting snapshot of two decades of change. When I analyzed the changes between 1996 and 2003, a dominant trend was that most of our woodlands had an increased density of understory trees. In general, the woodland floors had gotten darker and herbaceous vegetation had become sparser during that period. One exception to this trend was at Raccoon Grove Nature Preserve in Monee, IL. Unlike all the other woodlands, Raccoon Grove had less understory trees in 2003 than in 1996 and was visibly sunnier and brighter.
Raccoon Grove photo point in 1996 (left) and 2003 (right). The ground layer was visibly sunnier and brighter in 2003 and there were fewer understory trees.Another Raccoon Grove photo point in 1996 (left) and 2003 (right). Especially to the left and behind the marker, note the reduction in understory tree density.
This sunnier understory at Raccoon Grove was mystifying to me because the only ecological management that we had done during that period was routine prescribed burning. When I pulled the burn records for the period between 1996 and 2003, two of the burns at Raccoon Grove were done in the spring (3/28/01 and 4/3/03) under relatively “cool” conditions (rH 50%+, temps 35-50°F). One fall burn (11/24/98) was done under “moderate” conditions (rH 24‐50%, 50°F) in dry leaf litter. All three burns were reported to have 75-90% burn coverage, and they all seemed to be very normal prescribed burns. Based on the general descriptions given in the reports, none of the burns was the type of truly hot fire that I would expect to kill trees and thin the understory density.
Typical prescribed burn at Raccoon Grove, with an assessed fire intensity of patchily lightly burned (category 3.5).
An earlier burn’s report had some crumbs that indicate a potentially hotter fire: this burn was done in the spring (4/2/1996), and conditions were described as “hot” in the prairie and along the forest edge but “cool” in the interior forest. Although weather conditions were not unusual for prescribed burns (rH 35-40%, temps 50-70°F), the burn report references smoldering logs and indicates that fire reignited overnight and had to be put out on a neighbor’s property the next day.
I wish we had used a better protocol to characterize the severity of prescribed burns back then. I would love to know if a more complete and intense burn in the substrate layer from just one burn potentially was responsible for the understory tree thinning that resulted. Or, perhaps, the burn frequency of four “solid” burns in seven years was a bigger factor. With better monitoring, we would be able to tease out the different aspects contributing to a fire’s effects. We would know better how to prescribe burn conditions to meet specific management outcomes.
Post-burn monitoring to document and characterize a fire’s intensity.
Prescribed burning is one of the ecological management activities that has higher risks to human and wildlife safety. That makes it important to make sure that the prescribed burns are meeting management objectives. It doesn’t take much extra time to do prescribed burn monitoring, and to accumulate data to learn better how fire intensity can influence vegetation communities. No need to wait – start using a standardized protocol to monitor your fire’s effects during this burn season. Our future selves and future ecologists will thank us!
grassland restoration network 