Fire and Ice

Forces opposite and powerful bring their unique beauty and even complement each other.

Our steep hillside “goat” prairie is healthier when it has periodic fire to knock back encroaching brush, and it was overdue for a burn. In a normal year, the snow quickly melts from the “hot slope” but persists in the woods around the prairie into early Spring. This puts a ring of protection around the prairie when we burn, creating a natural firebreak and greatly simplifying the task of containing the fire. We have received remarkably low snowfall in the northeast corner of Iowa this winter, which did not bode well for our chances to safely burn the prairie this Spring.

Last Wednesday’s snowfall came down fast and furious, and wet. It flocked the trees with a magical coating of white, plus 2” of slushy wet cover in the woods. Thursday morning was absolutely stunning: the first day of Spring was a winter wonderland against the bluest of skies. The snow quickly began to melt, and by afternoon the trees were throwing snowballs down on anyone below. Friday was just right to keep the woods moist. Saturday morning brought crisp sunshine to dry the prairie, and a fringe of snow still protected the woods on the north side of the ridge. That last magical snow set us up for a good day to burn the prairie.

On Saturday morning, our team raked away the leaves from a narrow band of soil in a line around the west and lower margin of the intended burn area. By early afternoon we were able light a match. The picture above is near the base of the prairie, as the fire began to race up the hill toward the ridge. The roar and heat of a moving line of fire in grass is a powerful and awesome force; you don’t want to be above it! The fire stopped at the top when it hit the rocky ridge, because the shady forest on the north side still had patches of snow. When the fire hit the woodland edge to the west and east, it behaved as expected and crept in a low burn through the drying leafy litter. We spent the next two hours ensuring the flames didn’t creep beyond our target area and helping the fire reach pockets of brush. At the end of the afternoon, we sat on the north bluff point, looking down over the blackened slope and listening and looking out over the sloughs full of migrating pelicans, geese, ducks, swans, and cranes. The rain Sunday morning effectively “mopped up” any residual glowing embers that might have still smoldered in logs or stumps within the blackened area. A picture-perfect progression of ice and fire, with a chaser of rain. Nature at its best.

The prairie will wake up happy and healthy after the fire; that’s what prairies do. We plan to see this with Samuel Thayer during our July workshop, “Fire, Food and Prairie Ecology”; check the events page of the website to register.

Meanwhile we’re looking forward to more and more things coming to life as spring emerges here at Iowisota. I will probably post more phenological observations on the Iowisota Facebook and Instagram pages over the next few months, just because I can’t fit it all in a biweekly blog post.