Every so often, Charles Skornia sets fire to sections of his land in central Missouri. It’s something he’s done for about 38 years, and he prefers it over other management methods, like mowing.
“You could maybe burn a field with a half day, a couple hours of work or so, but it would take you a couple days to brush all your field off with a brush hog,” Skornia said.
Skornia is president of the East Central Prescribed Burn Association in Missouri and is a third-generation farmer who raises soybeans and wildflowers. He started doing prescribed burns to get rid of cedar trees and other unwanted plants on his property.
He said intentionally burning the area opens it up to native wildlife and enhances the natural ecosystem.
As climate change is causing wildfires to become more frequent and burn bigger areas during longer seasons, the practice of prescribed burns — or intentionally burning land to manage it — is gaining new attention.
In 2020, 9.4 million acres of land were treated with prescribed fire across the country, with 84% of burns done on state and private land, according to the most recent National Prescribed Fire Use Report. Although the acreage is down from 2019, it was the second-highest number reported since the survey started in 2012.
Kansas was one of states with the greatest number of acres burned by prescribed fire, according to the report.
There are dozens of prescribed burn associations across the country, and Skornia’s association has about 60 members. He’s seen more and more people interested in burning. Skornia said this work is important to maintain wildlife and to prevent wildfires as the climate changes.
“God put us in charge of all this stuff, so we need to take care of it and this is one method we can do that,” Skornia said.
Fighting fire with fire
Driving into Stillwater, Oklahoma, passersby can see scorched black sections of land. More acres in the state are burned from prescribed fires than wildfires, said John Weir, senior fire ecology extension specialist at Oklahoma State University.
Weir helped host a prescribed fire training in Stillwater this month for firefighters, landowners, emergency planners and other people interested in learning about controlling wildfires.
“You got landowners that have thousands of acres that haven’t burned before or have, and people are seeing the need and the importance of it, as well as having all these fire departments here realizing that, ‘Hey, we’ve got to start helping the landowners,’” Weir said.
To conduct a prescribed burn, weather conditions including wind speed, humidity level and temperature have to be right, and people need to follow their local laws. In Oklahoma, there’s a prescribed burn handbook and trainings are available to learn about the process safety and available resources, such as local burn associations.
Weir said that most people in the state burn to control invasive red cedar trees, and about half also burn land to control wildfires.
Indigenous people have used fire as a tool to clear land, promote ecological diversity and reduce the risk of wildfire for thousands of years. The practice also holds cultural and spiritual importance for many Indigenous communities.
