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Prescribed Fires: A Method of Invasive Species Control
- Eli Mirek
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Welcome back UIC Radio! Midwest Muse is back for another semester, and I am excited tell you all about prescribed fires today. Over winter break, Mick and I visited a forest preserve we often drive through together. Before visiting the cemetery and church we most often visit, we walked through a trail in the woods and noticed smoke ahead. I figured it was a prescribed fire because I worked in the area over the summer, and the company I worked for does prescribed fires over the winter.
Indeed! It was a huge pile of logs and branches on fire with about twenty feet of bare earth surrounding it, protecting the native trees from catching on fire. It was very comforting standing near the fire, especially because it was freezing out.
You may be wondering why setting trees on fire is important for the environment. It seems almost counterproductive... aren't we supposed to be protecting forests and preventing wildfires? YES, of course we are, and prescribed fires are a method of doing so.
First, let's define what prescribed fires are. According to the US Forest Service, an agency under the US Department of Agriculture, "prescribed fires, also known as prescribed burns, refer to the controlled application of fire by a team of fire experts under specified weather conditions to restore health to ecosystems that depend on fire." When left unchecked, fire-dependent ecosystems can become overcrowded, and many species can become choked out by overcrowding or from competing with invasive species. Prescribed fires help prevent this from happening and help maintain a healthy, well-balanced ecosystem.
However, prescribed fires are not only used for fire-dependent ecosystems. They can also be used for invasive species control, which is the most popular use in the Midwest. I like the explanation the City of Naperville gives on their "Controlled Burning" page: "The objective of controlled burning is to eliminate weedy [or/and invasive] woody species [like shrubs and trees] prior to additional management and restoration efforts within a conservation area. Controlled burns improve the native plant communities by reducing invasive plant species that can invade wetland and prairie ecosystems and degrade them."
Normally, there are two burn seasons, one in the winter and one in the spring. These two season are best for prescribed fire because the fuel needed for fire (leaves, branches, grasses, etc.) is dead and burn easily. These seasons are also wet seasons, meaning that fire can be controlled easily compared to dry seasons like summer and fall. In addition, during the summer and fall seasons, plants are thriving and can resist fire better than if they were dead.
Do prescribed fires actually work though? Yes!
In "Fire as a management tool for invasive woody plants in natural environments: A systematic review" by Gabriela Brancatelli, Alejandra Yezzi, and Sergio Zalba, the researchers found that 80% of studies that aimed to determine if prescribed fires were effective found positive results. In their conclusion, they write, "we can say that prescribed fires have a high potential to be used in invasion management, particularly in fire-dependent ecosystems" (10). They also mention the side effects of prescribed fires, stating the practice has "few harmful effects on vegetation, water, or soil . . . while the benefits appear . . . long-term and much greater than the harms" (10).
In addition to invasive plant species control, there is a current, ongoing study on the use of prescribed fire for invasive pest control, specifically focusing on the spongy moth and spotted lanternfly in Eastern United States. The prescribed fires would be focused on the native hosts of these pests, like the Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) from China. If you would like to read more about this ongoing study, you can visit the "Prescribed Fire as a Tool for Invasive Species Mitigation" page on the US Forest Service website.
Here are some photos I took from when I found the prescribed fires!
That's all folks! I hope you enjoyed reading this blog because I ended up having fun writing it! ALSO IMPORTANT ANNOUCEMENT: MY BLOG IS NOW BIWEEKLY. This semester, I really want to focus on my schoolwork and job, so I'm putting Midwest Muse on the backburner for a bit. However, my show, it came to me in a dream, is still weekly on Wednesdays at 11am! Thanks for reading dear friends.
All research cited can be found through these links:
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