K-12 Education

The AFE’s position paper on carbon emissions and prescribed fire addresses grasslands in addition to woodland resources and the benefit of Rx fire.

Prescribed fire plans often address smoke and air quality concerns. Burn bosses plan for their preferred wind to avoid sensitive populations like schools and hospitals. Kansas smoke management recommendations provide decision support tools to help burners know what their contribution to air quality might be on a target spring day. Oklahoma recently instituted another tool to help burners avoid critical air quality levels. A new ozone burn ban was enacted in 2013. On days when ozone alters have been issued for the areas around Oklahoma City and Tulsa, open burning is prohibited. Luckily, most people probably won’t be too interested in burning during that kind of hot steamy weather pattern.

The Oklahoma Forestry Service maintains a web page listing current Oklahoma Burn Bans. For more on the Kansas smoke management efforts, watch our videos on Fire in the Flint Hills and visit the Kansas Flint Hills Smoke Management website to learn how some ignition techniques can reduce smoke output.

Read about the work that Refugio-Goliad Prairie is doing to maintain ecosystems with fire in Texas.

Researchers are hopeful about a soil fungus that has potential to control cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum). At the following website check out the list of papers describing research trials.

www.cheatgrassbiocontrol.org

A letter in Nature (“Rate of Tree Carbon Accumulation Increases Continuously with Tree Size”) contradicts the widely held belief that while large trees store carbon, they do not accumulate significant amounts. A story and podcast about this research also appear on the journal’s public website.

www.nature.com/news/tree-growth-never-slows-1.14536

Providing Us an Effective Alternative to Traditional AARs

Craig Cunningham, Superintendent of the Ruby Mountain Hotshots, has come up with a new way to structure After Action Reviews (AAR) that is making a positive difference on his crew. Previously, AARs were often vague debriefings which many people said were “broken”, but the new PLOWS structure changes how the AAR is used. The mnemonic PLOWS stands for Plan, Leadership, Obstacles, Weaknesses, and Strengths. By asking questions related to each topic, such as “Was the leader’s intent communicated and sufficient?” a safety and learning focused AAR can be conducted while encouraging crew participation. Some crews have been putting PLOWS into practice and observed that their discussion of the obstacles encountered one day led directly to a plan of improvements for the next. The PLOWS format is said to be working well for crews that have adopted it and influences small changes as well as larger goals for the upcoming season. Cunningham encourages others to try new AAR formats and share what works so others may benefit. Learn how to implement the PLOWS method of AAR on page 6 of the issue of “Two More Chains” linked below.

Prescribed fire is widely viewed as a useful but risky ecosystem management tool, and liability is a crucial issue for prescribed burning on private and public land. Basic liability rules motivate landowners to reduce risk when making choices about the use of fire. Liability therefore influences land use through incentives, and so has important consequences for the larger ecological landscape. Strict liability rules may lead to too little prescribed fire use, while negligence rules may, under certain circumstances, lead to too much. Although prescribed fire provides broad public benefits, such as reduction of wildfire risk or enhanced ecosystem health, the application of liability rules by courts often discourages its use as a vegetation management option. Various approaches exist for improving the laws and regulations surrounding prescribed fire.

Lightning is known to spark wildfires. Across the country, lightning frequencies vary greatly (World lightning frequency maps). In the Great Plains, lightning is often accompanied by rain and therefore is less likely to ignite wildfires. Nevertheless, mother nature does sometimes start fires here in the GP.

Have you ever seen a tree that seems to have exploded? Have you ever wondered why trees explode when lightning strikes them? Here’s a blog post from Ian Lunt’s Ecological Research Site to help us understand the process.

ianluntecology.com/2015/01/18/lightning-trees-people/

It all starts with the soil. In fact, 2015 has been dubbed the International Year of Soil. In that spirit, throughout this year we will make a special effort to pass along grassland soil science relevant to the fire community.

The Journal of Ecology has a special virtual issue focused on below ground interactions. This issue contains several papers related to grasslands that might spark your interest.

www.journalofecology.org/view/0/VI_Soil.html