A quick note before we begin: Gardzen has professional and personal ties to California and like so many of you we’re heartbroken to see the damage caused by wildfires around the Los Angeles area. Our goal in this blog is to share helpful, basic information; we’ll be avoiding any political or policy discussion as much as possible. We invite you to join us in doing what you can to support those affected by these conflagrations and to keep them in your thoughts and prayers during the recovery process ahead. If this topic might be upsetting for any of our readers, we encourage you to come back and read it when you’re in a better space to do so.
Controlled burns—more properly referred to as “prescribed fire”—are a body of techniques for forestry and land management involving the careful and deliberate use of fire to remove debris, limit the spread of disease or invasive species, improve habitat for wildlife and native plants, or limit the risk of wildfires. Prescribed fire/controlled burns have been practiced around the world for millennia as human beings worked both with and against nature in various ways. While controlled burns likely won’t be necessary in most garden spaces, prescribed fire is a topic of conversation in gardening, landscaping, and land management circles. We want to share some basics here with the hopes of helping readers new to these subjects better understand the broader conversation.
What are Controlled Burns or Prescribed Fire?
Let’s start by defining what a controlled burn or a prescribed fire is a bit more thoroughly and explain a bit about why they’re used. Many different biomes, landscapes, and ecosystems are prone to fire, and as such they have adapted to survive and thrive with it. For some, fire is a necessary seasonal event for soil health, plant reproduction, or the removal of dead or dying plants. These environments found a kind of harmony with fire and coexisted with seasonal fires for a long, long time.
Humans are less well adapted to dealing with wildfires, and as the human species spread around the globe we found ourselves moving into places where naturally occurring fires were regular and essential events. So, over the course of many thousands of years, the people living in these places learned how to set smaller controlled fires that filled the same roles as wildfires with much less damage and danger for the human residents. Native Americans and First Nations people across the Americas practiced controlled burns, as did the natives of Australia. Parts of sub-Saharan Africa have a long history of controlled burns and they’ve been used for years in Central Asia as well. Over the centuries more and more regions have adopted controlled burns for various reasons. Sometimes they were used to work with nature and prevent larger fires, sometimes they were misused as a way to clear land cheaply and easily. Controlled burns have also been used to limit the spread of invasive species or—as we’ve seen recently in California—to limit the spread of larger uncontrolled fires. During and after a controlled burn various kinds of fire suppression equipment will be on site in order to put out any errant or uncontrolled fires before they can get out of hand.
How are Prescribed Fires Set and Controlled?
There are a number of techniques used to start and control a prescribed fire, depending on the environment in which the fire is being used, the current conditions, and the size of the area to be burned. Generally speaking a controlled burn or prescribed fire should only be carried out by professionals who have been specifically trained in how to do it safely and effectively. This is not something that property owners or land owners should attempt on their own unless they have professional-level resources and expertise; consult with your local fire department for information about the best way to conduct a controlled burn in your area.
Generally speaking many controlled burns go something like this. The fire crew, led by a “fire boss” or “fire manager”, surveys the area to be burned and assesses the situation. They’ll determine how much area needs a prescribed fire, where the fire should start and end, and the best ways to control it while it does its job. How this works will as always depend on the goals for the fire (debris removal, environmental enhancement, fire control), the time of year, and the current conditions. When things are in place and conditions are good, the fire boss will direct their crew to start setting small fires to get the controlled burn started. Typically a controlled burn will feature a main fire—the fire that does the bulk of the work—and several strip fires or back fires which create smaller burned areas that direct and limit the spread of the main fire. The whole process is carefully supervised, with fires started and extinguished in a controlled sequence for both safety and to ensure best results.
When the blaze is finished, the fire manager stays on site to ensure that no secondary fires spring up in its wake. Particularly for larger prescribed fires, this may take several days in order to ensure that all has gone according to plan and that the controlled burn will not result in any additional accidental fires.
The Importance of Prescribed Fire
Controlled burns, prescribed fire, and other modes of controlled fire are a necessity for both environmental health and human safety in many places. They remove dried plant material that can fuel a wildfire, help many species of plants through their life cycles, clear space for wildlife, and improve pasture lands and soil condition. They can help limit the spread of plant diseases and remove invasive species. These controlled fires have been useful to both people and the broader natural world for a long, long time, and we’ll continue to use them into the future.
We hope that you’re safe, well, and at peace and that this blog has helped you understand the role that prescribed fire and controlled burns play in many facets of land management and forestry. If you’d like to share your experiences with prescribed fires, we’d love to hear about them in the comments or via email.
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