Fire is a lost tradition in Missouri but this council is reigniting the practice

French Jesuit priest Louis Vivier in 1750 described what 70 years later became the state of Missouri, and in his writings he told of Native Americans there setting fires to the prairies. “The trees are almost as thinly scattered as in our public promenades,” he wrote, and “the Savages set fire to the prairies toward the end of the autumn, when the grass is dry; the fire spreads everywhere and destroys most of the young trees.”
Vivier was right about fire being a frequent occurrence in Missouri, as reported in a feature story on KSDK.com. Midwest tribes had been purposely setting fire to the grasslands and prairies for centuries. They recognized the essential role fire played in the prairie ecosystem, and that knowledge, and the practice of managed burns, is being rekindled by the Missouri Prescribed Fire Council, a coalition of landowners and experts attempting to bring the state’s grasslands back to their once-thriving status.

These practices have been recorded nationwide as the philosophy of fire as medicine, according to the National Park Service.

European colonists’ response to the tradition of cultural burning was the implementation of a century-long fire suppression regime. Missouri’s disappearing prairies in part have the resultant lack of fire to blame. Unregulated tree growth, known as woody plant encroachment into tallgrass prairie environments, has progressed throughout the Midwest as areas of saplings develop without needed periodic fire.

Missouri’s Ozark region, for instance, has existed in the “not enough fire” category for much of recent history, causing a drop in biodiversity and the domination of the landscape by oak, hickory, and cedar trees, according to the University of Washington and others.

The Missouri Prescribed Fire Council, though, is trying to reverse that suppression regime and reintroduce managed burns back into the state for the health of its natural environment.

“Almost all of Missouri’s natural plant communities have adapted with fire,” said Wes Buchheit, councilmember and prescribed fire coordinator biologist with Pheasants Forever & Quail Forever. “Fire is a natural tool and prescribed fire is mimicking that natural process in a more controlled setting … you can benefit a lot of different species, plant and animal, with prescribed fire.”

About 93 percent of Missouri’s 44.6 million acres is privately owned, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation. The lack of public land means any substantive prescribed burning must come through community collaboration. In response to multiple recent historic wildfire seasons, a movement of Prescribed Burn Associations (PBAs) has grown nationwide. Many RxFire efforts are led by federal agencies, but these PBAs are instead a collaboration among landowners. The Missouri Prescribed Fire Council is part of that growing movement, and because wildfires haven’t been a prevalent issue for Missourians, private landowners in the state haven’t been as hesitant to participate in prescribed burning as other wildfire-prone states.

Prescribed fires have burned tens of thousands of acres in 95 of Missouri’s 114 counties between 2020 and 2022, council data showed. Of those, just over 1 percent have escaped control, and most burned just 0.1 acres or less, which is on par with national averages. “The only time that folks ever heard about prescribed fire is when there’s an ‘oops,'” says Council Chair Mark Howell. “They don’t hear about the other almost 99 percent of the time that things go perfectly well.”

Credit: Missouri Prescribed Fire Council

Genius arsonist sentenced in Missouri

A Missouri man was sentenced today to 12½ years in prison for arson on the Mark Twain National Forest and assault of a U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officer; U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh sentenced Lucas G. Henson, 37, of Iron County, Missouri, and ordered him to pay the USFS about $7,200 in suppression costs for the fires he set. According to a report by ky3.com Henson pleaded guilty in March to assaulting the LEO, along with arson and felon in possession of a firearm.

KSDK News reported that Henson last year set three fires across Butler and Wayne counties, which damaged seven or eight acres of National Forest Land. He also pointed a crossbow at a Forest Service officer.

U.S. Attorney Sayler Fleming of the Eastern District of Missouri said Henson was in the forest after he’d crashed a stolen truck while fleeing from the truck’s owner. He also faced multiple other charges including first-degree robbery, stealing a motor vehicle, and resisting arrest.

He is due in New Madrid County Circuit Court in July.

According to Fleming, Henson was out on bond after being charged with stealing and drug offenses, when he stole a Ford van on October 22, 2022 near Poplar Bluff. He abandoned the van when it ran out of gas. Later that day, he broke into a camper and stole items from it. The next day, he stole a Dodge pickup, then burglarized a home and stole a 9mm handgun. He also stole a crossbow from a workshop near that home.

When the truck’s owner found Henson, Henson pointed the 9mm at him and drove away. Law enforcement officers then joined the pursuit. Henson eventually crashed the truck on Mark Twain National Forest land, then started a fire and attempted to burn the handgun 😜 and the other stolen items before trying to escape into the forest.

Officers began tracking Henson with dogs, and when they approached he started his next fire. Henson started another fire when officers approached him again.

He later aimed a crossbow at a U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officer, as well as other officers, before taking off again. He was eventually caught near the Black River. Besides the USFS the case was investigated by the Butler County Sheriff’s Office, the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office, and the Missouri State Highway Patrol. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Shelton prosecuted the case.

THANKS and a tip of the hardhat to Dale.

Roughly half of small Missouri town burned Saturday

Wooldridge Fire, October 22, 2022
Wooldridge Fire, October 22, 2022. Photo by Cooper County Fire Protection District

A wildfire burned about half of the small town of Wooldridge, Missouri Saturday. The fire started from a combine that was harvesting crops and spread into the town pushed by 25 to 35 mph winds with low relative humidity.

Authorities said 23 structures were destroyed or heavily damaged. No one was killed and one person was taken to a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries, but the entire town of 100 people had to be evacuated.

Wooldridge Fire, October 22, 2022
Wooldridge Fire, October 22, 2022. Photo by Cooper County Fire Protection District

The fire spread into land managed by Big Muddy Fish and Wildlife Refuge.

Interstate 70 was closed due to smoke for about two hours Saturday evening as the 3,000-acre fire was burning.

The Missouri Statewide Mutual Aid system was activated and more than 50 fire departments from  across the state responded.

Wooldridge Fire, October 22, 2022
Wooldridge Fire, October 22, 2022. Photo by Cooper County Fire Protection District

Two Missouri firefighters entrapped and injured in grass fire

Fort Osage Fire Protection District
Fort Osage Fire Protection District

Friday afternoon a fire that started in an outbuilding near Buckner, Missouri had spread to several acres when a brush truck operated by the Fort Osage Fire Protection District became surrounded by heavy smoke.

The crew left the truck and attempted to escape from the area, announcing “May Day” on the radio. Other crews immediately came to their aid but two of the personnel on the brush truck were injured, and the truck was destroyed.

One of the firefighters was released from the hospital Friday night and the other remains in serious condition.

The fire ultimately grew to 15 acres and destroyed several small outbuildings before being brought under control at 4:05 p.m. Friday. Multiple homes were endangered but were saved by firefighters.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Matt.

Wildfire News, March 7, 2016

Alaska April wildfire potential
April wildfire potential in Alaska, based on vegetation conditions and weather predictions.

—Fire officials say to ‘expect an early start’ to Alaska wildfire season.

—Shooter’s tracer rounds ignite 2-day forest fire at Missouri gun range

–A proposed Utah law would enable police to shoot drones, but people have been arrested for doing so.

–A massive bushfire cut off and isolated the South Island town of Hanmer Springs, New Zealand on Tuesday (local time).

–The Arizona Wildfire Academy is taking place in Prescott this week.

—Hubbardston, Massachusetts gets military surplus truck to help battle brush fires.

Hubbardston Mass mil surplus truck
Hubbardston, Mass. military surplus truck. Photo: Hubbardston Fire Department.

Wildfire briefing, October 26, 2015

Oregon declares wildfire season to be over

Bald Butte area fire
A fire in the Bald Butte area started near Springfield, Oregon October 10 when a burning car ignited vegetation above Forest Service Road 23. Dry fuels and gusty winds left 24 acres of burnt timber and brush on national forest lands. Oregon Department of Forestry photo by Greg Wagenblast.

The Oregon Department of Forestry has declared the 2015 wildfire season to be over. Rain and the arrival of cool, moist weather patterns prompted the declaration as of 12:01 a.m. Saturday. Oregon experienced a third consecutive difficult wildfire season this year. As of Sept. 11, total wildfire costs totaled more than $211 million in Oregon, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry. (That figure may include costs incurred by all agencies in the state, including federal, not just the ODF.)

The Oregon state government has an insurance policy with Lloyd’s of London which provides up to $25 million of state government fire suppression costs that exceed $50 million. The $3.5 million cost of the policy is split between the state and private timberland owners.

Board approves design for Yarnell Hill Fire memorial

The Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board has approved a conceptual design for a memorial to commemorate the site where 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots were entrapped by fire and killed June 30, 2013. According to the Daily Courier, the design by architect Bill Gauslow “consists of 19 white marble crosses, each placed where a man fell, surrounded by 19 low walls, spaced a short distance apart, and built of rip-rap rock.” The memorial would be placed at the fatality site which will be purchased by the Arizona State Parks department. Interpretive signs, one for each of the 19 firefighters, would also be placed every 1/10 mile along the 1.9 mile trail from the parking lot to the memorial site.

Researchers think fires were more common 300 million years ago

Scientists from the Department of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London together with colleagues from the USA, Russia and China, have discovered that forest fires across the globe were more common between 300 and 250 million years ago than they are today. This is thought to be due to a higher level of oxygen in the atmosphere at that time.

Full text of the research article.

Landfill near nuclear waste site has been burning for six years

From the Chicago Tribune:

Beneath the surface of a St. Louis-area landfill lurk two things that should never meet: a slow-burning fire and a cache of Cold War-era nuclear waste, separated by no more than 1,200 feet.

Government officials have quietly adopted an emergency plan in case the smoldering embers ever reach the waste, a potentially “catastrophic event” that could send up a plume of radioactive smoke over a densely populated area near the city’s main airport.

Although the fire at Bridgeton Landfill has been burning since at least 2010, the plan for a worst-case scenario was developed only a year ago and never publicized until this week, when St. Louis radio station KMOX first obtained a copy…

Fire jumps Missouri River, from Kansas into Missouri

A fire that burned on both sides of the Missouri river forced residents to evacuate from an area in St. Joseph, Missouri on Sunday. Fire personnel believe the fire started in Elwood, Kansas and jumped the river, spreading over hundreds of acres and for about five miles along the river near St. Joseph. The fire is much less active today, but the area is under a Red Flag Warning.

wildfire Elwood St. Joseph
The yellow, brown, and red dots represent the approximate location of heat detected by a satellite. The locations of the dots are accurate to within about a mile.

We checked Google Earth and found that the river in that area is about 0.16 miles (820 feet) wide. Depending on the vegetation, weather, and topography, it is not unusual for burning embers to start fires quite a distance from the main fire. There is a trial going on now in San Diego County that revolves around a fire that may have been ignited by an ember that traveled 0.44 miles and started a new fire that destroyed 36 homes in San Marcos, California. And last September on the King Fire near Pollock pines in California an ember started a spot fire approximately 2 miles ahead of the main fire front. There have been reports of spot fires starting even farther away.

UPDATE, March 17, 2015: It took me a while to find this. It is in a report about bushfires in Australia, “Report on the Physical Nature of the Victorian Fires occurring on 7th February 2009“. It not about burning embers, but lightning caused by the fire.

In 2003, lightning induced by a pyrocumulus cloud started fires in the Snow River National Park, 25 km [15 miles] ahead of the fire front. These fires did develop into a significant area. Other examples exist of this phenomenon.