Prescribed Fire
Prescribed fires, whether broadcast burning or pile burning, combined with mechanical and/or hand thinning treatments, are effective land management tools frequently used to reduce the accumulation of hazardous fuels, including old and dense vegetation.
As part of the ongoing effort to create and sustain resilient forests, fire crews on the Rio Grande National Forests implement prescribed fire projects. Planned ignitions will begin when weather and fuel conditions become optimal for achieving management objectives while keeping minimizing smoke impacts to the surrounding communities. Weather and fuel conditions are closely monitored, and each prescribed burn project may continue as long as conditions remain favorable.
About Prescribed Fire
Have you every burned leaves or dead grass on your property? If so, what considerations did you take before starting the fire? Learn more here about the many aspects that are considered when a prescribed fire is planned and implemented on the Rio Grande national Forest.
Public safety is always the first consideration for all fire management operations.
Fire Management Specialists may use prescribed fire to treat the land in much the same way a doctor prescribes medicine to treat a person. When a doctor prescribes medicine, it is under very specific conditions that the medicine is taken. Similarly, when a prescribed burn is implemented, it is conducted under very specific parameters.
Each prescribed burn has a detailed prescribed fire plan developed from the comprehensive planning efforts conducted long before the project activities are initiated. The burn plan provides guidelines for what objectives are desired, when and where to burn, under what conditions to burn, acceptable fire behavior, organization, contingency plans for fire control, smoke management and public concerns. The organization is the structure of personnel that will be involved in the implementation of the burn and each person’s role on the burn.
Daily weather conditions play a key role in whether a burn can be accomplished or not. This is why prescribed burns may be cancelled at the last minute and why predicting the exact day of a burn is sometimes difficult. Fire managers evaluate conditions and forecasted weather to make the best decision as to when to burn.
When the conditions are met, highly trained fire management personnel apply fire to the treatment areas, closely monitor the fire's progress to ensure it stays exactly where it was intended and adjust ignition patterns as necessary to ensure the project objectives are met. Crews remain on site long after the flames subside to ensure containment lines are secure.
The primary objective when land managers conduct fuels reduction projects is to reduce the possibility of large wildfires, which can, among other things, generate dangerous amounts of smoke. The amount and duration of lingering smoke created from prescribed fires is minimal compared to the numerous dense smoke-filled days of a normal summer wildfire season.
Fire managers on the Rio Grande NF use two prescribed fire techniques: broadcast burning and pile burning.
Broadcast burning involves widespread application of fire to ground vegetation during a time when the vegetation is readily available to burn but not too dry and volatile. Spring and fall are the most common times for this type of burning.
Pile burning is the result of both hand and mechanical thinning operations. Crews cut small trees and limbs of live trees to reduce vegetation connecting surface fuels to trees. They stack the debris in piles in strategic locations where fire won’t ignite trees or other vegetation. Fire managers typically burn the piles when the area has adequate snow cover, which nearly eliminates the chance that ground fuels will ignite unexpectedly and makes the burn relatively easy to contain. Fall and winter are the most common times for this type of burning.
Piles are typically ignited mid to late morning. Hand piles burn actively for about an hour, which is when people will see the most smoke. Crews will push unburned materials into the pile to improve consumption, which will cause a short burst of higher activity and smoke. The piles then burn down over the next several hours. The majority of piles will be burned out by evening or overnight. Most people won't see much, if any, smoke after the first day.
Larger timber sale landing piles burn actively for several hours and take longer to burn out. Most smoke will be gone by evening, but piles may continue to smolder and may take a few days to be completely out. Crews patrol the piles daily.
Smoke from prescribed fires can often be seen for miles, but the amount and duration of lingering smoke created from small-scale prescribed fires is minimal compared to the numerous dense, dangerous smoke caused by massive wildfires throughout the west.
Smoke from all prescribed burns is closely monitored to ensure that the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division regulations and permit requirements are being met.
Prescribed fire smoke may affect your health. For more information, visit the Colorado Department of Physical Health and Environment.
After a burn, a visitor might see the area as simply black and barren. A closer look reveals the unburned bottoms of grass stems growing uninhibited by the dead grass layers that robbed the plants of water, nutrients and light.
In areas where there are trees, visitors should begin to see varied generations of tree populations that restart the natural progression of the ecosystem replacing old, diseased and dense vegetation.
Visitors who revisit the area can watch the landscape rebound from this natural change agent and witness the kind of event that shaped the vegetation on this land for thousands of years before humans intervened.