What are the ecological impacts of prescribed fire?

Any thoughts about prescribed burns to get rid of invasive vegetation?

Is climate change impacting the benefits of prescribed forest burns?

HOW MANY PRESCRIBED BURNS ESCAPE?

What about the pollution from the smoke?

Why not use mechanical thinning instead of burning?

How do I know when and where they are going to burn?

Are snakes killed if grassland is burned?

Prescribed Burning Conservation Practice 338- https://efotg.sc.egov.usda.gov/references/public/AR/338_fact_sheet.pdf

PA Prescribed Burn Practices Act link - https://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/US/HTM/2009/0/0017..HTM

Prescribed fire is often used to manage invasive species, particularly shrubs. There needs to be more research on this area in the region. Some species are impacted negatively, while other may become problematic. Stiltgrass is a concern regarding the potential to come in after fire. Fire and herbicides are often used in a mixed approach to be successful. Figuring out the kind of burning regime that my eradicate certain invasive species is an important question.

In my experience many snakes, and other species, are able to move out during a fire or find refuge. Many wildlife species are accustom to fire and actually benefit. Indigo snakes in the South go into gopher tortoise burrows during burning or move out of the area. One of the reasons for burning over in Jennings Springs Environmental Center is managing an endangered rattle snake that depends on the habitat. Smoke is one mechanism thought to trigger wildlife's alert to burning. Even bats can be triggered by smoke to come out of their daytime resting periods and become active and move during a burn.

FYI - The snake at Jennings Springs is the massasauga rattler.

Here is a link to proposed Game Commission burns. This is updated to show what is imminent. http://pagame.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=d7ab50bde980460fab22de6316ec73ca

If serotinous cones (those requiring fire) are on the ground then ground fire can open them. They are typically retained in the crown of these species, however, 'waiting' for a fire.

Climate change issues and fire can be complicated and depend on the region. Climate change in parts of the west have resulting in longer fire seasons and more extreme conditions (bad for wildfire) that makes prescribed burning under safe conditions even more important to mitigate fire hazard. In many places the concern is how to make forests more resilient to potential future climate and other factors such as pests and disease. It is important to think about what the likely changes could be and how to manage to stay resilient. In places that may get wetter, the benefits of burning may be more difficult to achieve. But the variability of precipitation may be key. While yearly precip may be expected to increase in an area, the seasonal variation may increase and result in times that are very wet and times where droughts occur. I hope this helped with that question.

is there any connection between prescribed burns and Carbon Sequestration?

Unfortunately, The Smoky Bear campaign has been "too" successful... thus, we focused our message in a broad brush approach without the ecological impacts

Very few burns escape out of the 'box' (usually 1 or less %) and escapes that cause any damage are very rare. An example of some data show that out of 22,435 burns 194 escape fires were reported, only one insurance claim made, and no lawsuits.

https://vimeo.com/user12944121/review/384593048/84d22595c2

ericas video

Thank you for an excellent presentation.

Does grassland burning destroy any of the sed bank, esp. stilt grass seed?

thank you

Thanks again.

thank you

Thank!