(Jackson, Mn.)– Officials with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources are talking about the benefits of prescribed burns. One such burn was conducted recently in southwest Minnesota. Grant Henderson of the Minnesota DNR says the burns serve several purposes…
“By doing a controlled burn out there we are hopefully setting back some of those non-native species and getting some native species in there, some of the grasses and forbs that are going to benefit wildlife down the road here.”
While most of the burns are conducted in the spring, Henderson says there are some advantages to doing them this time of the year…
“They had some species in there that weren’t has beneficial to wildlife and so that was one of the trigger points for us. Also with this particular prairie we had some encroachment of cottonwood trees and other brush species that aren’t desirable in a prairie setting and this time of year being fall, we were able to get that burned and hopefully set some of those tree species back. So those were a couple of things I guess we think about. And when we’re planning these types of burns, you know, they are largely dependent on weather and wind directions and things like that so we can be safe with the fire and keep it controlled, and also our staffing and equipment levels come into play as well, if we can get enough folks together to do things safely.”
Henderson says they do keep in mind input they receive from the public when it comes to prescribed burns…
“Many of these wildlife management areas have funding that obviously comes from the people of Minnesota with hunting license dollars and things, so we are cognizant of that. With this recent fire we only burned about a third of that wildlife management area. We just need to be cognizant and to leave some of that habitat on the landscape for hunters to enjoy this fall as well.”
Henderson says the short term inconvenience from the burns is easily outweighed by the long term benefits of restoring grassland habitat areas.
