Nebraska is still reeling from recent destructive wildfires and heading into what’s expected to be an active fire summer.
A new website launched by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln seeks to put the state’s long history of fire on full display, and in turn, help farmers, ranchers and land managers restore the state’s native grasslands.
The historic Morrill Fire and other wildfires burned 821,000 acres across the state between March and April, by far the highest number of burned acres the state has seen in generations. Gov. Jim Pillen recently requested President Donald Trump to issue a major disaster declaration and subsequently unlock federal recovery funding in response to the fires.
The wildfires have been an unwelcome reminder for many that fire is a natural part of the state’s ecosystem. The Great Plains’ grasslands have long been fire-dependent, with frequent burns both benefiting native wildlife and destroying ever-encroaching invasive plants.
“Wildfire recovery unfolds over years, not months,” said Dirac Twidwell, rangeland ecologist at the university. “What we’ve built here is not just a map of fires — it’s a system that helps people understand recovery, anticipate change and respond with better information.”
The online hub was built using data from over 1,300 wildfires across the Great Plains since 1985, university officials said in a press release. The data allows people to view the specifics of historical fires, along with analyzing vegetation’s response to wildfire, and inform recovery decisions.
The data behind the platform draws from multiple national and research-backed sources, including the Rangeland Analysis Platform for vegetation data, the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity database for historical wildfire perimeters and the National Interagency Fire Center for recent fire data.
“That long-term record lets us see how grasslands actually recover — across different weather patterns, management decisions and landscapes — and that perspective is critical for making sound decisions today,” Twidwell said in the press release.
For example, the critically important Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge, which is located in one of the world’s most important intact prairies, was largely burned in the Morrill Fire. The university’s map offers hope for the Refuge in the near future, showing numerous other fires had burned there over the past decades.
