How to do a controlled burn

Controlled burning, also known as prescribed burning, involves setting planned fires to maintain the health of a forest. Materials burned in a planned fire include deceased grass, fallen tree branches, deceased trees, and thick undergrowth. Before a controlled burn is lit, a plan—or prescription—is drawn up.

When conditions are wrong, prescribed fire can severely damage the very resource it was intended to benefit. Prescribed fire can temporarily reduce air quality, but usually to a much lesser degree than wildfire. Proper planning and execution are necessary to minimize any detrimental effects to air quality.

The benefits of prescribed burns

Controlled burns are often carried out by agencies like Cal Fire, which has a long, often-bureaucratic process that can take years to navigate, Pangburn said. In trade, the agency will own the liability for the prescribed burn, if there is any unanticipated damage.

Outdoor residential burning can only occur on a permissive burn day in your local air district. Many large air districts already ban outdoor residential waste burning. Check with your local air district for any additional restrictions.

The pattern is a form of insanity: We keep doing overzealous fire suppression across California landscapes where the fire poses little risk to people and structures. As a result, wildland fuels keep building up. At the same time, the climate grows hotter and drier.

The state has loosened its smoke restrictions, and prescribed burning has ticked up, to around 200,000 acres a year. But in a state with 30 million acres of forests, it hasn’t been enough. Last year brought Oregon a wildfire season that rivaled California’s.

Prescribed burns can be done by individuals, the state, or federal staff, depending on who owns the land. Individuals can either get permits from CAL FIRE and their local air board—and assume legal liability for any mistakes—or contract with CAL FIRE to do the work.

Sometimes called a controlled burn or prescribed fire, prescribed burning is one of the most important tools used to manage fire today. As catastrophic wildfires continue to be a growing concern in California, the use of prescribed burning to reduce hazardous fuels is projected to increase.

California has 33 million acres of forest land, one-third of the state’s total land area. Sixty percent of this forest is publicly owned – for example, by the USDA Forest Service and the National Park Service. The remaining 40% is privately owned.

California, like much of the West, gets most of its moisture in the fall and winter. Its vegetation then spends much of the summer slowly drying out because of a lack of rainfall and warmer temperatures. That vegetation then serves as kindling for fires. [Follow our live California wildfires map tracker.]

Controlled burns are also used to prevent forest fires. Even before human involvement, natural, low-intensity wildfires occurred every few years to burn up fuel, plant debris, and deceased trees, making way for young, healthy trees and vegetation to thrive. That new growth in turn supports forest wildlife.

forest fire.

Forest fires help in the natural cycle of woods’ growth and replenishment. Clear deceased trees, leaves, and competing vegetation from the forest floor, so new plants can grow. Break down and return nutrients to the soil. Remove weak or disease-ridden trees, leaving more space and nutrients for stronger trees.

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Fires can help eliminate the roots and shoots of invasive plants and stimulate growth of native species. Controlled fires can eliminate infected plants and enrich the soil. Controlled fires can also eliminate overcrowding of plants or trees.

Controlled burns carry many ecological benefits. However, there are downsides to igniting an ecosystem, mostly due to the sometimes unpredictable nature of fire. Many of these drawbacks, like lower air quality, are short-term and would be worse in the case of an uncontrolled wildfire.

Fires typically result in the reduction of fuel and organic soil nutrient pool sizes, increase soil nutrient turnover rates, and redistribute nutrients through the soil profile (Fisher and Binkley 2000).

Fire removes low-growing underbrush, cleans the forest floor of debris, opens it up to sunlight, and nourishes the soil. Reducing this competition for nutrients allows established trees to grow stronger and healthier. History teaches us that hundreds of years ago forests had fewer, yet larger, healthier trees.

Intense forest and shrubland fires can burn soil organic matter, reducing the pool of nutrients in the soil, soil aeration and water infiltration/retention, and the soil’s ability to hold nutrients coming from ash or fertilizer.

Fire has been used by humans in rituals, in agriculture for clearing land, for cooking, generating heat and light, for signaling, propulsion purposes, smelting, forging, incineration of waste, cremation, and as a weapon or mode of destruction.