If the goal is to recreate a savanna landscape, then an important question to ask is, "if summer fires created the savanna landscape in the past, what is the problem with using them in the present?" The good news is, that without question, summer fire can be very beneficial to rangeland health.

  ~  the author

Before there were roads, towns and cities, rural fire departments, livestock, and man (i.e., before European settlement), "natural summer fires" in the Edwards Plateau must have been something to behold. Just imagine the fuel loads that built up and the consequences of a lightening strike starting a fire in July or August. The fire would start small but quickly spread due to the wind from the thunderstorm. Soon the fire would be large enough to create its own wind, sucking in oxygen to feed its appetite for more fuel.

Flame lengths would be reaching into the trees from the head fire. Firebrands would be traveling hundreds of feet into the air and starting new spot fires ahead and to the sides of the fire front. Soon the horizon would be covered with smoke and particulate matter, both being lifted high into the atmosphere; possibly enough to create a rain storm but not enough moisture to put the fire out. The momentum of the fire would carry it across rivers and streams and over the tops of hills and through ravines. Hundreds of thousands of acres would be burned. At night the fire would slow down and almost stop as if it were resting. But the next day temperatures would rise, the humidity would decrease and the winds increase and the fire would wake from its sleep and continue to spread across the landscape seeking more fuel for it ravenous appetite. Depending on the weather conditions, the fire might burn for days or weeks; only Mother Nature would decide its fate. In the fire's wake, untold acres of vegetation and litter would be burned down to mineral soil. The burned areas would look like a moonscape. Charred and blackened with no green leaf left for either ant or buffalo. With no soil moisture or rain, the landscape could appear inhabitable for either man or beast for many months. But the rains would come and when they did, the perennial grasses and forbs with their energy and growing points stored under ground, would quickly reappear. The liveoak, shinoak, and most other woody plants would also resprout from under ground crowns or roots. In fact, if vegetation were sampled before and then after the burn when plants had resumed their growth, species composition would almost be identical. The few exceptions would be ashe juniper and prickly pear which would be absent from the vegetative complex for some time.

It was the summer fires that historically maintained most of the Edwards Plateau as grassland or savannas. If the goal of certain landowners is to recreate this savanna landscape, then an important question to ask is, "if summer fires provided this savanna landscape in the past, what is the problem with using them in the present?" The good news is, that without question, summer fire can be very beneficial to rangeland health.

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© Charles A. Taylor Jr., June, 1999

The author is professor, Texas Agriculture Experiment Station, P.O. Box 918, Sonora, Tex.

This information was published in Edwards Plateau Prescribed Burning Assn. Newsletter, Vol.2, No.2, June, 1999.

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