How many of you regularly burn part or all of your land or lease to improve habitat for wildlife? How often? How large an area? What time of year? What species most benefit from the burning? Downsides? How did you learn burning technique?

Thanks, RS

I do not, but would like to do part of my land. The problem is that when it needs to be done, it is usually too wet to burn very well. Late winter and early spring would be the ideal time, but my particular piece of land that I would like to burn has standing water at that time. Not deep, but enough to hinder the burn. Rarely are conditions right. miles

we burn about 3500 acres a year, we like what we call the 80-80-20 system temp. under 80 deg. humidity 80% wind less than 20 mph, we spend a considerable amount of time with disc cutting our fire breaks getting ready to burn, we burn in a checker board pattern of about 500 acre sections.we keep a burn map and depend on it to keep us organized.

controlled burning helps all the plant life and wildlife on the ranch.

there 3 things land owners don't do enough of, BURN BURN AND BURN. Rio7

In the East they don't burn enough and all we end up with is poison ivy, jap honeysuckle and multiflora rose thickets.

http://rs53.pbsrc.com/albums/g61/BlueRIO7/IMG_2116_zpszjw9jeyv.jpg~c100

Truth.

But, I'd rather people pay me to shred it.

I used to burn 200-300 acres per year for a landowner, but it is hard to make any money doing it. Especially in populated areas, the smoke management issues limit the conditions and acreages that you can burn in without opening yourself up to lawsuits. I can't think of a wildlife species that doesn't benefit from prescribed burning.

Shredding costs to much in tractor fuel and labor,and shredding will not get all the woody plants up off the ground there is a lot of native plant seed that will not grow with out burning, I am happy I don't have to worry about our smoke pi$$ing anyone off. Rio7

would you call yourself a "burningman"?

There was a time when I thought I was pretty hot, I have been over that for awhile now. Rio7

What he said. I burn about 25 or so of the 70 acres on my farm. Most of the areas that I burn are in NWSG or fallow areas and I burn the NWSG on a 2 to 3 year rotation. Its amazing what this does to the landscape and my quail and rabbit numbers have improved dramatically since I started converting the fescue to NWSG and doing prescribed burns. And if you've never witnessed a field of big blue and indian grass burning your in for a treat!!!

NWSG ?

RS

Native warm season grasses according to google.



Naperville Women's Social Group doesn't sound quite right in this context...

Oh, you mean weeds.


RS

We used to, have not for years anymore.

But it sure did good.

And I"m always amazed as many grass fires as we run a year, not many folks burn anymore.

But where they do, it really helps the land out.

Want nice green grass? Burn it off and let a month go by and some rain... wow...

I do try to burn my garden off every fall though...

This approach makes a lot of sense.


When I was in Zambia quite a while ago, they burned every year.

I don't know how they decided when and how to burn, but I very much doubt that there was much analysis involved. We'd see the line of fire across the horizon in October when it was dry as a bone.

Of course, doing it every year resulted in rather low levels of brush and fires that were reasonably low. My understanding is that the wildlife could easily move away and that burning helped some seeds germinate. I'll have to check it out, since this area of NM high desert gets awfully susceptible to fires.

we started doing control burns last year and will continue for the next several years.
Our ranch is mainly operated as an elk and wildlife ranch in conjunction with NMDGF. The benefits are great especially if you have allot of old growth and or an overpopulation of small trees etc.. that choke off new growth and compete. We especially concentrate on Juniper (some people refer to as cedar).

Since we are bordered on three sides by NF we also use it to establish a firebreak between us and them

We had friends with some land close to Laredo.

They too burned about 1/3 every year... on rotation and it sure made a difference for the cattle and the wildlife.

The problem these days is no one wants to burn in national forest for the most part and when you finally get a fire... watch out.

They burned in state forest in E Texas a few years back, and as a matter of fact, I think they did just this past fall when I drove through. Makes a LOT of sense.

Isn't the burning component of land management a terrorist act? There are a couple good men doing time in Pendleton that performed a controlled burn on their lease that are serving their second prison sentence for the one fire.

Fire is an excellent management tool that isn't done enough.

(Other issues in that case being put on ignore) you have a point
I am not allowed to control burn my state leases w/o their permission per the lease agreement. It is pretty specific what I can and can not do, same as BLM.

It's a great tool if used competently.

Wildlife thrives

It can be criminal I know that, if it was done and got away from the folks doing the burning and destroyed other stuff, if it was done during a burn ban or when the weather was such that you "knew" better than to start a damn fire.

And I agree with that totally.

When we burn, we check double check the weather,if there's a doubt in my mind we don't burn. Knock on wood we have never lost control of a fire yet, we have had bordering ranch's lose control of a fire, and burn some of our land and we have fought fire on other ranch's to help control wild fires. if starting a burn doesn't scare the crap out you, your a fool. anything can happen when you start a fire, you better be ready to fight it, you can't run from it. Rio7

Nope, not weeds. That would be forbes. Native warm season grasses like Big Blue, Indian, Switch, Little Bluestem, Sideoats Gramma, Easter Gamma and the like. Some of the best grasses if your wanting to improve the habitat for small game and deer and some of them make excellent hay for cattle or horses or pasture for the same. Much better then fescue in many ways.

Absolutely!! I always seem to stop and ponder for just a moment before tipping that drip torch as its an all or nothing sort of deal. Once you light off a field of NWSG, especially the big stuff like big bluestem, indian or switch, its all over. Its a pucker moment for sure!!

Neighbor to the West of me has 60 or so acres of this stuff, don't know which exactly but it grows tall. He has to have it burned by April 1, if he burns it, and some years it is too wet, but when He does you can feel the heat from 150 yards through a double pane window. The volunteer fire department does the burn as a training night. They always wait until late afternoon when the humidity is going up and it is still quite a sight. My land is wetter and usually when I can burn, there is too much baby wildlife so I usually end up shredding. miles

Well if you can burn instead of shredding by all means do that. Or if you cant burn, try using a disc to knock down the stuff your shredding, much more wildlife friendly. A veteran wildlife biologist once told me that a guy should wear out at least two disc for every shredder that he uses. In other words stay off the mowers all that you can but if you must at least hold off till July or so.

Folks don't understand a lot of things on fires. That it creates its own weather as it heats up. That can change wind direction quickly on its own. That its not only the fire you need to stop at the fire breaks, assuming that you know what it takes to have a good fire break, its the embers that can kill you.

Embers, IIRC, will go up to a mile in the air. Viably. I"ve been the downwind side of fires as a spot fire crew, and found fires igniting to what we have measured with GPS to be .6 mile in front of the fire at that time.

We had a salt well struck by lightning a year ago on July 4. It is about half a mile in front of my house. Fiberglass tanks in the battery.

A few days later I found burnt pieces of the tanks over a half mile behind my house...

I've lit fires at home on brush piles when I was sure it was ok... and almost had em get away due to wind shifts and embers. Although I won't burn without a pump and nurse tank or water hose handy. And a cell phone.

I"ve no issue with folks that light fires under good conditions and it all just changes and gets away, thats what we are for. The ones though that light it with dry weather and a 25 mph wind blowing to the neighbors dry waist high field of grass.... those I have issues with about ignorance. Burning my field is one thing, but stupid burning my vehicles or barns or houses down, thats another thing.

Regardless like you folks, we all go help whenever we are needed, all the neighbors do too for the most part.

We had a 3000 acre fire start from power lines bumping in high winds, just across our fence. I had 6 other folks on our neighbors place helping us with the right flank before all the fire departments arrived. Thats how it goes in the country.

But man is fire a good thing too.

FWIW I"m scared every last time I light a fire at home. Even though I'm trained in it. And prepare for it. I'm still a bit scared. I"ve had fire chase me. Out of the blue when it wasn't expected. ITs not fun.

When I circled the 5 acres of Big blue and Indian grass with the drip torch after letting it back burn for 40 feet or so, it went up in a flash and I had an almost perfect mushroom cloud overhead. Seemed like it took 5 minutes for the ash to come back to earth.