Prescribed Burn Services

Native Meadows offers prescribed burn services including planning, permitting, site preparation and operations.

Reasons to burn:

  • Invigorate and maintain grasslands

  • Improve wildlife habitat

  • Control invasive plants

  • Manage hardwood forests

  • Reduce the risk of wildfires

  • Prepare sites for planting

  • Improve livestock pastures / forage

  • Golf course management (roughs & woods)

 

Goals

Prescribed burning is a tool used to in a specific way to achieve a specific goal. The goal determines how to plan and execute a burn, from where to put fire breaks, to choosing a day with suitable weather, to the pace of ignition.

Impacts

  • Prescribed burns refresh and re-invigorate vegetation.

    • Native plants produce more flowers and seeds.

    • Wildlife forage increases.

    • Native plants depend on fire to maintain habitat.

    • Burns can control invasive shrubs, vines and trees.

  • Prescribed fires are not like wildfires.

    • Plants, trees and wildlife survive prescribed burns.

    • Burned sites do not require re-seeding afterwards.

    • Erosion does not occur because roots survive.

  • Smoke is light, limited and lasts for a short time.

Reduce Wildfire Risk

Prescribed burns can reduce the risk of wildfires by consuming dead wood, grass and leaves in a controlled manner. These materials can build up over a long period of time and if a wildfire begins, they can burn dangerously and out of control. Periodic low intensity prescribed fires remove these fuels so that there is not much material to ignite in a wildfire scenario.

Professional EXPERIENCE

Owen has worked on prescribed burns since 2012 and has been managing burns since 2014. He is a certified prescribed burn manager in Virginia and has also conducted burns in New York State. Owen’s safety record is excellent and achieved through careful planning and execution to maximize safety and effectiveness. Owen has qualified to national standards as a wildland firefighter.

Services

1. PLANs

Careful planning begins far in advance of conducting the burn. Prescribed burn plans describe why and how burns will be conducted. They are required in order to protect people, property and to obtain permits. Native Meadows can assist you to write a comprehensive plan to safely and effectively conduct a burn. A key component of the plan includes what type of weather will be suitable, e.g. low wind speeds, smoke impact reduction, or humidity.

2. Permits

Native Meadows can assist you to acquire appropriate permits and permissions from your local fire department, state authorities and can help you reach out to neighbors or others. Each state, county and town is different and we can help navigate the permit system.

3. Site Preparation

Fire breaks are used to contain the fire within a desired area and are created long before the burn day. It may also be appropriate to prepare the fuels (grass, leaves, brush, etc.) in certain ways to increase safety or rates of consumption. For example, trimming grasses will shorten the height of flames and make operations safer.

4. Operations

Conducting the burn is the final step. Native Meadows can manage the execution of the burn plan and can provide personnel and equipment such as water pumps, hand tools and ignition equipment.