A few views of prairie burn in late March 2010

The about 60 acres of prairie land that the nature center manages for Westar Energy that the Prairie Hills Trail runs through are burned every few years. The burning removes old thatch and invasive woody plants and renews the prairie ecosystem. The burn was conducted by crews of Up in Smoke Custom Burning, Inc. with the assistance of nature center staff. Watch for photos of the new growth of prairie plants in the next few weeks.

(click on photo for larger view)

next last

Some of the Up in Smoke equipment	Pre-fire meeting to discuss strategy	The first step of lighting the backfire
Using the drip torch to set the backfire line	Our Steve helping to manage the backfire	The backfire going in two directions from the NW corner
Setting the secondary backfire behind the first	Setting part of the head fire along the east edge	Head fire now going strong with 20 to 30 feet high flames

next last