Where there's smoke, there may be environmental renewal: How parks use fire to support nature

This story is part of a series exploring how parks serve as engines of exploration, education, play, and equity. It is made possible with support from Huron-Clinton Metroparks and the City of Detroit.

A burning field, forest, or prairie in your local park may be an alarming sight, but sometimes it's actually a sign of an intentional, controlled process with significant benefits for the environment. Inspired by millennia of Indigenous practices, prescribed burns are carefully planned and conducted to support native plants and their ecosystems. 

Huron-Clinton MetroparksA prescribed burn in the Huron-Clinton Metroparks.
Here in southeast Michigan, the Huron-Clinton Metroparks have a robust prescribed burn program. The Metroparks also recently began assisting the city of Detroit in conducting prescribed burns in its parks. We chatted with Katie Carlisle, the Metroparks' chief of natural resources and regulatory compliance, about the benefits of burns, how they're planned and conducted, and common misconceptions about the practice.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What is a prescribed burn?

A: A prescribed burn is an intentional setting of fire to the land by trained professionals in order to accomplish an ecosystem goal, such as to improve habitat for pollinators.

Q: How does fire contribute to those ecological goals? 

A: With every burn, we have a variety of goals, but they're usually really simple. Every burn we do has a prescription. That's why they're called prescribed burns. Our prescription is everything you need to know about this burn on paper. It includes the map of the location, it includes cell phone numbers of the people that are leading the burn, it very specifically writes out the location of the burn. So this is what we give to the fire department. 

And then it goes into a little bit more information, like: How big is the site? What type of habitat is it? What are the objectives? Prescribed burns will push back invasive plants like autumn olive or garlic mustard. They remove buildup of leaves or grass, depending on the ecosystem. They stimulate new growth and native vegetation, like wildflowers or oak trees or grasses. 

And then they also just maintain fire as a natural process in these ecosystems that are dependent on fire to thrive. Nothing that we are doing is new. These oak-hickory forests or prairies have evolved with fire from Indigenous techniques for a really long time. These ecosystems have been seeing fire for centuries. So we're just trying to keep them healthy. 

Huron-Clinton MetroparksA prescribed burn in the Huron-Clinton Metroparks.
Q: How often do you do burns in the Metroparks? 

A: We burn annually, usually in the spring and the fall, with more burning done in the spring because that's just what weather allows. Each unit, like a forest or a prairie, may see fire anywhere from every three to 20 years. Different landscapes require different burn intervals. Some of them need to be burned every three to five years. Some of them don't need burns until every 10 to 20 years. 

Prairies and grasslands are burned most frequently. Some of the best prairies we still see in Michigan are located near railroad tracks, because the railroads would start fires and keep fire in the ecosystem and keep them healthy. It stimulates a lot of the native plants in the prairie. It also deters some of the invasive plants. And then wetlands and forests are a little bit less frequent. It takes longer for a forest, for example, to build up fuel that is needed. And by fuel, I mean leaves to carry the fire through. In a prairie, which is full of grasses and flowers, there'd be enough that you could probably burn it every year if you wanted to. But it doesn't need that much more than every three to five years. 

Q: What is the process of conducting a burn? How do you make sure that this is done safely?

A: Most of the work happens before we even put fire on the ground. It starts the year prior. We plan out a list of our sites that we want to burn. We evaluate all of our units and prioritize needs. We start looking at permits with every different fire department. We have to write out burn prescriptions. And all of this is before we even get to spring. And then once spring gets here, usually mid-end of March, is when our burn season begins. That's when weather dries up enough and allows us to start burning. 

Before that, we do training refreshers every year for our crews, and a fitness test to make sure we have enough people that are in shape enough to do this physically demanding work. And then we have to keep an eye on the weather. Each burn unit has different requirements. Let's say you have a highway to the south. You need a south wind to push the smoke to the north. So we keep a really close eye on forecasting and the different criteria and parameters for each burn unit to determine how they're going to line up in the schedule. It's a lot of work even before we get to the ground. 

Q: How long have the Metroparks been doing burns? Is this a newer practice, or does this go back for many years? 

A: Our first burns started around 2000, so we've been doing them for about 25 years. 

Q: What are some common misconceptions about prescribed burns? 

A: I think a lot of people, when they see fire, they're really concerned for wildlife. But there's a lot of planning that goes into the burns in order to minimize impact for wildlife. For example, some of our locations have protected snakes, so we burn them really early in the spring, while the snakes are still hibernating, so that we don't injure them. For some other sites, we make our unit smaller so that the animals and wildlife have refugia or safe places to go to during the burn. If we weren't to burn, we would lose the ecosystem entirely. And then the wildlife wouldn't have what it needs in the location. That's probably the biggest [misconception].

I also think it's important for people to know that these burns are done by professionals. So just because you're inspired doesn't mean you should necessarily try it in your backyard unless you've gone through that training.

Huron-Clinton MetroparksA prescribed burn in the Huron-Clinton Metroparks.
Q: The Metroparks have helped the city of Detroit conduct some prescribed burns. When did that partnership start and why?

A: I think it was in 2022 that we coordinated the first burn for Rouge Park. And every year since then, we've done burns in other parks throughout the city. So this year, we did Palmer Park. Last year, we did Riverside Park. We're funded by taxes from [Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, and Livingston] counties. And so it's just a way to make sure that we're not missing that central area around Detroit and kind of giving back. These things don't see political boundaries. By improving habitat, it's hopefully going to trickle down and help the habitat and the plants and animals that migrate between our parks as well.