Environment

Prescribed fires: Five Rivers MetroParks' vital flame of prairie preservation

WYSO | By Adriana Martinez-Smiley

Published April 23, 2024 at 10:50 AM EDT

At Carriage Hill MetroPark, state-certified burn manager Grace Dietsch assembled park staff and volunteers to burn a 21 acre prairie on April 15

For a prairie to remain a prairie, fires have to be lit.

Prairies have adapted to thrive after a fire, which can warm the soil, eliminate invasive species, and more.

That’s where prescribed fires come into play.

They are purposely lit as a tool to keep an ecosystem healthy. Five Rivers MetroParks has 600 acres of prairie, so the staff often use this land management practice.

Months of prep before the blaze

At Carriage Hill MetroPark, it took about three hours to burn the 21-acre prairie. But the prep work to plan a burn can take far more time — months even — according to state certified burn manager Grace Dietsch.

Dietsch is always getting updated training to ensure fires can be safely completed. Otherwise, fires could get out of control.

“The stakes are high when you're out here,” she said. “So I need to have all the tools available and all the education I can to make sure that I'm making good, informed decisions.”

Dietsch said she wanted a team of 15 at least to assist on this burn. This includes staff, but also several trained volunteers.

Various roles go into a prescribed burn. Some people are designated to light the fire in segments with a drip torch, some are tasked with adding oxygen to the fire. But off to the side, there's also a team of people ready to put out the fire with a water hose should things get slightly out of control.

Before completing burns, Diestchsubmits a plan to both the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

"We have to provide them maps and pretty detailed descriptions of where our burn units are and how large they are,” Dietsch said.

Carriage Hill MetroPark was still open to the public, but signs like these were put up to make visitors aware of what was happening. Some trails were also closed that were in the direction of the prescribed burn.

This includes considerations such as weather conditions and emergency responses.

Weather is a critical factor when deciding whether a burn is safe to complete.

Weather is so important for safety that Diestch said she designates a person to read off changes in weather every 30 minutes to the burn team.

That’s also whythis may be the last burn of the season for the park system.

“From here, it's just going to get hotter, and it's just going to get drier. And those two factors do not make for a manageable burn situation,” she said.

Dietsch focuses on prairie burns, although other fire-adapted environments such as oak forests could also benefit from fire. While she said she’s not as comfortable with those burn scenarios, it’s something she’s open to expanding her expertise on.

“I am constantly learning on every burn, every paper I read, every training I go through, constantly evolving my knowledge, and I imagine it's the same for the entire team,” she said.