Fire Is Central Webinars

Connect with your grassland fire management community across the central U.S.

Fire is a key process in the grasslands and savannas that span the center of North America. "Fire Is Central" is an online discussion series designed to facilitate discussions about widely-relevant topics, connecting across many jurisdictions to share research and lessons learned from practitioners. The Great Plains Fire Science Exchange and Tallgrass Prairie and Oak Savanna Fire Science Consortium co-host the series.

Coming Up

Two panels on increasing prescribed fire capacity have been postponed until fall 2024.

ABOUT Fire is Central

There are many common issues across the grasslands of the central United States, but sharing fire management knowledge is complicated due to numerous boundaries – notably state boundaries and administrative regions.

We are facilitating these conversations to improve information flows and help connect people to colleagues and relevant experts outside of their usual circles.

The sessions are co-hosted by the Tallgrass Prairie and Oak Savanna Fire Science Consortium and Great Plains Fire Science Exchange.

ARCHIVED

Increasing Prescribed Fire Capacity in the Central US

Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024

View the recording on the TPOS YouTube channel

Communities across the central United States gain a wide range of benefits from prescribed fire, including improving forage quality, reducing the intensity of wildfires, restoring habitat for game species and rare species, and renewing a positive relationship with fire.

The panelists on Feb. 22 are prepared to address a number of barriers to prescribed fire, from state liability laws to agency policies, with an emphasis on ways that barriers to prescribed fire have been reduced for private landowners and those  providing technical assistance to landowners

Panelists

Charles Stanley, Rangeland Management Specialist, Central National Technology Support Center, Natural Resources Conservation Service

Carissa Wonkka, Assistant Professor, University of Florida

Wes Bucheit, Missouri Prescribed Fire Coordinating Wildlife Biologist, Pheasants Forever, Inc. and Quail Forever

Oct. 30, 2023: Fire in the Last Grassland Regions of the Great Plains

View the recording on the TPOS YouTube channel

Abstract

Humanity’s relationship with fire continues to rapidly change and influence the distribution of grassland ecosystems. In this paper, I discuss the progression of four distinct fire eras that have epitomized people’s relationship with wildland fire in the Great Plains since the last glacial maxima. These cultural fire eras include the now-extinct coexistence era (indigenous fire use), the suppression era (extermination of wildland fire occurrence), the shadow era (localized prescribed burning groups), and the current wildfire era. I draw connections between these eras and how competition among the cultures that identify with suppression, prescribed burning, or wildfire management are likely to further influence the distribution of grassland ecosystems into the future.

Presenter

Dirac Twidwell is a Professor and Rangeland Ecologist in the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture at the University of Nebraska and a Science Advisor for the USDA NRCS in the Great Plains. 

January 11, 2023: Fire Across the Grasslands – What Are We Managing For?

The recording is available on the TPOS Youtube Channel

Grasslands in the Great Plains and Midwest are at constant risk from invasion by woody species. Conversion to deciduous woodlands and forests is already widespread in the Midwest and the southern Great Plains. This discussion focuses on the many ways that fire is essential to grasslands and the people who live there. Panel members will address:

• the role of fire in resisting invasion by woody species;
• managing reconstructed prairies;
• promoting diverse plant communities and healthy wildlife populations; and
• and relevance to people from ranching communities to urban areas.