First burn of 2011

Despite all the cold weather and ample snowfall from this winter, we managed to conduct our first controlled burn of the season last Saturday (March 19th). After a week of weather in the 50's and a heavy rain, the snow quickly disappeared and allowed the sun to dry out the remains of last seasons prairie plants.

The corner lot prairie remnant was our best candidate for the first burn because the site has a good southern aspect and a fairly open canopy allowing the sun to quickly dry out the site. It's amazing to notice how important 'aspect' is in determining how likely sites would have burned historically. Aspect would have influenced tree development and that would have influenced the amount of moisture that was retained on site throughout the growing season.
North-facing slopes would have probably developed a thicker understory of blue-beech, serviceberry, red maple and other shade-tolerant plants that like cool, moist sites. South and west facing slopes would have had a thinner canopy due to the drier nature of the site which would have led to frequent fires and slower plant development. In other words, prairies and savannas would have likely occurred more frequently on south and west facing slopes, which is how our corner lot remnant is characterized. The picture above shows what the site looked like just prior to our controlled burn.



On the day of our burn, the weather was as cold as it's ever been for one of our burns. Temperatures only reached about 40 degrees and there was a slight wind out of the north. We got a late start on the fire and though the sunny skies helped the fire burn well initially, as the sun set the temperatures dropped quickly and the relative humidity rose enough that the fire almost put itself out completely. Therefore, our site burned well where we started on the south end, but by the time we reached the north end, the burn was very patchy. The weather since has been abnormally cool so it may be another week or so before we do any more burning.