For Missouri Conservation, Carefully-Used Fire Plays Critical Role

Mar 29, 2016

Wildlife Management Biologist Jeff Demand walks into the woods during a prescribed burn at Whetstone Creek Conservation Area in Callaway County.
Credit Sebastian Martinez / KBIA


A group of about 15 Department of Conservation employees have spread out across the Whetstone Creek Conservation Area near Williamsburg, Missouri for a major prescribed burn on a recent afternoon.

Wildlife Management Biologist Jeff Demand explained, "This is a pretty big one, this is 1,166 acres. We normally do ‘em 100-300 acres in size is the average." Demand is the burn boss, meaning he’s ultimately in charge of this burn. It’s the   culmination of a lot of planning.

"We have a burn plan that’s about 35-40 pages and then the other planning is the weather conditions. You have to have the right wind direction, the right humidity," Demand said.

On top of that, Demand has to coordinate with all the members of the team, which includes water-carriers, ATVs with mounted flamethrowers, and billy goats: conservationists armed with drip torches, which drip flaming fuel onto the undergrowth.

Drip torches are one of the basic tools of the conservationists. They're extremely portable, and drip flaming fuel to start fires.

The billygoats set off into the woods, using their driptorches, which drip flaming fuel onto the undergrowth. The leaves burn, but at a low heat, and they give off a lot of smoke. Burning serves different ecological purposes in the wooded areas and in the grasslands which make up the conservation area.

"This time of year, it gets rid of the dead down, the duff layers, gets rid of the woody debris. It does a lot of promotion for new forbes and new grasses to come in," Demand said.

Those grasses burn a lot hotter and faster than the wooded areas along the creek, and the flames spring up to several feet in height. Smoke gradually filters into the trees, punctured by the setting sun, and the rising moon. Fire has been a part of the prairies and savannahs that covered central Missouri since the glaciers receded and created them, and the wildlife that inhabit these areas have long since adapted to the flames.

Demand explains that without fire, "Woody succession takes over and your prairies get encroached by woody and eventually and then eventually it loses a lot of the characteristics, a lot of the plants go out, a lot of the animals, a lot of the birds, insects, they can’t use that prairie."

That’s why, for centuries Native Americans started fires, which could last for weeks, to maintain the plants and animals that fed them, and even to herd bison for hunting.

Demand walks opposite burning summer grasses, which make up a central part of the conservation area.
Credit Sebastian Martinez / KBIA

Things look different these days. An ATV with a mounted flamethrower takes off down a gravel road, along an area of grassland. Because the flames can move so quickly, the conservationists make sure the wind is blowing in the face of the fire whenever possible, and that it’s contained by fire lines – like the creek or the gravel road – which the blaze can’t easily cross.

The wet winter this year means Demand and his crew had to wait longer than usual for today’s burn. The spring burning season has been pushed back into mid-April, which means more plants are sprouting up, and it’s more difficult to burn. But with the Whetstone Creek burn over with, Demand can move onto smaller burns, and the plant life can start to grow again.