Prescribed Prairie Burns

Every 3-4 years, in either Spring or Fall, we intentionally burn the Lake Michigan Bluffs Prairie, as well as a few other fragmented prairie restoration areas, as a land management strategy. Just as nature intended, an occasional fire aids the prairie habitat in a few ways. Fire reduces the overall hazardous fuel by removing built up, dead plant material. This ultimately makes the landscape more resilient to future fires and other potential ecological disturbances. Fire also renews the soil composition by returning valuable nutrients from the ash, which becomes available for new or existing plants to use during the next growing season. Intentional burning is also very effective for knocking back invasive or woody plant species that may otherwise out-compete the native plants you are trying to establish. The overall wildlife of the area improves; as natural food sources become available the habitat likewise becomes abundant with insects, birds and animals that thrive in open grasslands and wildflower meadows. 

A few imperative parameters must be met for a prescribed prairie burn to take place. First, the weather has to cooperate! Along the lake, where weather can change in an instant, we need particular weather conditions that are projected to last for a full day. We watch the forecast for a warm day, when the moisture will likely evaporate off of the plants quickly in the morning, with little to no wind, and no rain. Before we light the field, we make a call to our local fire department and alert them of our activities, so they can reassure concerned members of the community when a few inevitably call in our “wildfire.”