Map showing heat detected by satellites during the last seven days. Updated at 1 p.m. CDT April 19, 2019.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) says the average annual acreage burned in the Flint Hills during the prescribed fire season was almost matched over the past month. Most of the burning is related to agriculture, improving pastures or preparing crop lands.
Almost 2.1 million acres of grassland were treated with fire between March 15 and April 12. KDHE said roughly 2.5 million acres are burned annually.
The reporting time period includes 21 counties in Kansas and Oklahoma.
KDHE said burns from April 8-9 caused six air quality exceedances across parts of Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. There were no air quality exceedances due to burns last year.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Matt. Typos or errors, report them HERE.
In February we posted some statistics showing that historically there is a large spike in wildfire activity in March and April in Kansas. The spring is also a time when many, many ranchers conduct prescribed fires in the Flint Hills of Kansas and Oklahoma. This year between February 27 and May 5, 2.7 million acres were treated with prescribed fire.
Referring to the bar graph below, and throwing out the two busiest and the two slowest data points, in a typical year land managers in the Flint Hills burn between 1.1 million and 2.8 million acres.
We thank Eric Ward of the Kansas Forest Service for providing these graphics compiled by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment..
After the discussions on Wildfire Today about the use of prescribed fire in the Flint Hills of Kansas here and here, we, along with some of our readers, have been paying more attention to the use of fire in the state. Over the last 24 hours the weather in Kansas and Oklahoma must have been perfect for burning, because satellite images and the MODIS heat-detecting satellite have picked up a great deal of heat and smoke in the area.
The visual satellite image above shows smoke in northeastern Oklahoma and eastern Kansas at 5:01 CDT, April 11, 2013.
The map above shows heat detected by the MODIS satellite during the 24 hours previous to 7 p.m. CDT, April 11, 2014.
And speaking of smoke, the image below shows smoke detected by radar today from a fire in Horican Marsh, midway between the towns of Horicon and Waupun in Wisconsin. Click here to see an animation of the smoke as the fire increased in size.
Prescribed fire ignited by tourists at the Flying W Ranch in Kansas. Screen shot from the video below.
A cattle ranch in the tall grass prairie of Kansas allows tourists to observe and if they want, to help ignite prescribed fires on their property. The Flying W Ranch in the Flint Hills supplements their income by charging ranch visitors $100 to help start the fires by dropping wooden matches in the grass. We counted approximately 30 tourists in one of the scenes in the video below. The admission fee also includes a steak dinner. Their next hands-on prescribed fire is scheduled for April 5.
We can think of a lot of positives about an activity like this. Many ranchers could use an additional $3,000 (before expenses) to supplement their income. It could also provide an opportunity to educate the public about the benefits of prescribed fire, and how the process is essential for managing tall grass prairies and other vegetation types. In my experience as a Fire Management Officer, I learned that if you have a high-ranking manager in your organization that knows little about fire management, invite them to observe a prescribed fire. Loan them some personal protective equipment (PPE), and while under close supervision, let them operate a drip torch for five minutes. They will be hooked. (After seeing this video, a couple of matches could suffice.)
The negatives of a public hands-on prescribed fire are pretty obvious and revolve around the liability of the ranch owner and the safety of the participants who have no PPE or training, other than a briefing before the event. If there is an unexpected wind shift on a grass fire, experienced firefighters wearing PPE know that often they can find a place where they can step through the flames into a previously burned black area. Who knows what tourists, including children, might do. It is hard to believe that an insurance company would issue a liability policy to cover an event like this.
Almost 2.1 million acres of grassland were treated with fire between March 15 and April 12. KDHE said roughly 2.5 million acres are burned annually.
