Each spring, columns of smoke can be seen across the landscape in northwest Minnesota. These smoke columns result from landowners burning drainage ditches, farmers and ranchers burning agricultural stubble, pastures, and piles of brush and trees. Another originator of these spring “smokes” across the landscape is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The carefully planned prescribed burns conducted on state and federal lands are needed to maintain critical habitats for both game and non-game species found in northwest Minnesota.
The historic year of wildfires across northwest Minnesota, in the spring and summer of 2021, served to increase the emphasis of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducting prescribed fires in an effort to keep the accumulation of grass, brush, and trees down to a manageable level across the landscape. Land managers and firefighters use prescribed fire as a fuel reduction tool. Wildland firefighters often reference this as “We combat bad fire (wildfire) with good fire (prescribed burns).”
On the other side of the prescribed fire management tool are the species that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages their lands for. Fire removes dry, dead plant matter that has built up over the years, opening up space for new plant growth and providing better cover for wildlife. The burning also recycles essential nutrients that are locked up in dead plant matter, returning them to the soil where growing plants can use them. At the 23,000-acre Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge, located in northern Polk County, some of the target species are ground-nesting grassland birds, such as ducks, prairie chickens, upland sandpipers, bobolinks, and meadowlarks. All of these birds require a different grass structure (height and thickness) and varying amounts of “thatch” layers (a buildup of previous years’ grasses) to build their nests. Due to the mosaic of grasslands that the Refuge’s diverse bird community requires, the Refuge staff utilizes various types of land management tools, including haying some areas to create short grasses, burning to remove thatch layers, and making short grass during nesting season, and grazing to achieve similar results. Another benefit of conducting prescribed fires is to set back woody vegetation (willow, aspen) that has encroached upon open grassland areas.
In the spring of 2022, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and other partners will be conducting prescribed burns across northwest Minnesota. For more information about prescribed fire activities on Rydell or Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge, contact Eric Mark, Fire Management Specialist, at 701-425-9080 or eric_mark@fws.gov.
For more information, please contact:
Eric Mark, Rydell, and Glacial Ridge NWR Fire Management Specialist
701-425-9080 / eric_mark@fws.gov
