The Nebraska Public Broadcasting System is reviewing their best stories of 2012, and among that group is their coverage of a prescribed fire academy sponsored by The Nature Conservancy near Gothenburn, Nebraska. The Nebraska PBS site has an interesting article as well as a video describing the training which occurred in March.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
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…More and more, field operations for controlled burns are dictated by knowledge gleaned from scientific research. It’s long been known fire behavior is influenced by weather, the amount and type of available fuel and the lay of the land.
Since so much knowledge has been passed from one generation to the next, there’s an unusual tension between new science and the traditional, often effective, methods of harnessing the benefits of fire.
“I think that prescribed burning is more of an art than a science, but you do have to understand fire behavior and use that,” said Doug Wisenhunt of the USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service. He admitted to mixed feelings about crews in the field relying too much on computer models and mathematical formulas.
“You can calculate some of that, but in general, it’s just kind of knowing how the fire is going to react when you are burning at that time.”
