Texas Tech Promotes Prescribed
Fire Through New Fire Center

By Colleen Schreiber

LUBBOCK — Starting in about January, skies across much of West Texas darken with thick black smoke. Ranchers who are familiar with the process generally know that it's just the "Tech bunch" lighting fires again. It's been that way for the past 30 years or so, ever since Dr. Henry Wright came to the Texas Tech range management department in 1967.

Wright, considered by many to be the father of prescribed fire, died in 1994, but the work he began is being carried on not only by the department but also by his many graduate students who continue to spread the word about fire in other parts of Texas and across the nation, particularly in Arizona, Utah, Idaho and Nebraska.

"One of the primary strengths of the fire ecology program at Texas Tech University is our history," says fire ecologist Dr. Rob Mitchell. Mitchell came to the university in 1995 to fill the position vacated at Wright's death.

"I don't think a lot of people realize how much history

Texas Tech has had in fire, Mitchell adds.

That's one of the reasons why in 1997, Mitchell and Dr. Carlton Britton, also a professor in the department, proposed the development of a Fire Ecology Center. They wanted to help spread the word about fire.

"We want to make the knowledge gained through the department's years of experience available to people, to let them know what we have been doing and also to let them know that we're continuing that work," Mitchell says.

The center became a reality in February 1999 after approval by the Texas Tech University Board of Regents. The mission of the Fire Ecology Center, Mitchell says, is to train resource managers to properly apply fire, to serve the natural resource community through prescribed fire application, and to scientifically evaluate the role of fire in grassland ecosystems. The center is also compiling a database on plant responses to fire and has begun publishing printed material.

Funding for prescribed fire research was another impetus for starting the center.

"Research funding is more competitive today," Mitchell explains. "There's about the same number of bucks available, just more folks competing for those same bucks."

A Web page is being developed to promote the new center. The website is meant to serve as a learning center of sorts for those wishing to learn more or understand more about prescribed fire. Drs. Mitchell and Britton are in the process of developing a searchable database for ranchers who have specific questions relating to prescribed burning. For example, one might want to know what effect fire has on honey mesquite. Also available on the website are prescribed burning management publications, the current fire research being conducted, recent burning activity and observations, some fire photographs, and in the future, hopefully, some video demonstrations.

The general mission of the fire program at Texas Tech, Mitchell says, is still basically the same: to promote proper use of prescribed fire, including proper application and training.

"Rangeland burning would still be an infant art without Henry's drive, determination and foresight," Britton adds of Wright's pioneering work. Britton was Wright's third graduate student. The first pasture scale prescribed burn was conducted on the spade renderbrook ranch south of colorado city. dub waldrip was the first rancher in texas to have the fortitude and foresight to encourage the use of fire on rangeland and actually allow us to burn.

Prescribed burning of juniper-infested rangeland, he says, began when the university received a phone call from rancher Bob Beckham. Beckham had heard of Wright's fire research and he was curious to find out if it would work on his ranch south of Baird.

Beckham had a problem typical of Central Texas and the Edwards Plateau. His ashe juniper was so thick that there wasn't any grass in the understory, and what cows he could be run were difficult to gather because of the overabundance of brush.

Wright and his followers rose to the occasion, and the initial results of this early work led to groundbreaking discoveries that are today in use all across the nation.

Learning how fire behaved was the key, the researchers realized. They started by burning pushed cedar piles and studying the nature of firebrands, in particular the distance they would travel and under what environmental conditions would they ignite. After extensive testing, Wright and his graduate students came up with the "40-60" rule for safely burning in blacklines on the north and east edge of a pasture. Simply stated, firebrands have a minimal potential to ignite spot fires when the relative humidity is above 40 percent, air temperature is below 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and wind speed is less than eight miles per hour.

After this discovery, the fire program at Texas Tech gained momentum. The next major rule outlined in the 1970s by the department was the establishment of the 500-foot blackline as a standard fireline for burning cedar-infested rangelands.

Once the technique and basic prescriptions were developed, the emphasis shifted to training personnel, in this case university students who were enrolled in range management instruction. It was an ideal way for young people who would be going into the range profession to learn the art of prescribed burning, and it was a way for the department to keep pace with the rapidly expanding and growing demand for their burning services by the ranch community.

By this time the department was burning in excess of 10,000 to 15,000 acres a year throughout West Texas. The training involved not only classroom instruction but also hands-on experience through required participation on a set number of prescribed fires.

Additionally, the department initiated a week-long prescribed burning school for Natural Resource Conservation Service personnel. The school, which averages 10 students, is still conducted annually. Personnel from some 15 states have been instructed at Texas Tech.

Another practical innovation that came into play in the 1980s was the use of a helitorch to ignite headfires especially in pastures with rough topography. This was a big leap in terms of applying fire, and the technology took some intensive efforts before it was perfected.

Also during this time, further research conducted by one of Britton's graduate students found that below about 70 percent foliage moisture, the canopy of cedar trees was easily ignited. This discovery led Wright to incorporate the use of fuel moisture content into the standard prescription to ensure a safe and effective prescribed fire.

Texas Tech continues to do considerable contract burning. Typically, the department spends between 25 and 30 days in the field, burning on average 30,000 acres in a given season. In the early days of the program, many of the burns were conducted on ranches infested with cedar, either redberry or blueberry, or in the mesquite-tobosagrass flatlands. Though those kinds of burns continue today, considerable contract burning is now also being done on CRP lands.

"CRP burns are very variable from one site to the next," Mitchell says. "If the ground is surrounded by cotton, the burn is very easy to do, but if it's surrounded by native range it's more difficult because CRP lands tend to have lots of accumulated fine fuel. We've burned some fields that had almost 20,000 pounds of fine fuel compared to most native range sites that only have about 2500 pounds."

To help counter some of the liability pressure, the university developed a liability release form which landowners must sign before the university will agree to conduct a prescribed fire on their property. Essentially, the form releases the university from all liability, Mitchell says.

"That’s probably the biggest functional change we've seen in our burning program," Mitchell remarks. "We've had very few landowners who would not sign the contract. The upper administration is confident in the contract which gives me confidence in their support of the burning program."

Research today at Texas Tech no longer centers so much on fire behavior but more on understanding how the application of fire affects different ecosystems. Those ecosystems being studied include the traditional native range mesquite/tobosa flats and the rough cedar breaks, but today more work is being done on improved pastures and in particular those lands in CRP.

Mitchell and other researchers throughout the Southwest are focusing considerable attention on the problem of salt cedar encroachment along waterways in Texas. The problem has become particularly severe around Lake Meredith in the Texas Panhandle, Mitchell says. Historically, this area was a cottonwood-riparian zone. Today the cottonwoods and willows have all but been replaced by salt cedar. Lake Meredith isn't the only waterway which is suffering, however. The problem, in general, he notes, is worse west of Lubbock but infestations can be found statewide.

Herbicide application has generally not been a viable option, not only because of cost but also because of federal regulations, so Tech is once again turning to the use of fire as a possible management tool.

Like juniper, salt cedar is also very volatile, even more so in some cases because of the topography in which it grows.

"Salt cedar often grows in a V-shaped depression, so you have an up-slope all the way around the fire unit, which makes managing the fire quite difficult," Mitchell explains.

For that reason, Mitchell's initial focus is on developing a prescription guideline for burning safely in these salt cedar communities.

Besides their volatile nature, salt cedar and redberry juniper have several other things in common. They are both resprouters, they steal water in great quantities, and very little grass can be found under these dense canopies, which makes conducting a successful burn difficult.

Because of the lack of fine fuel, Mitchell is trying a combination of roller chopping and burning, and more recently a combination of burning, roller chopping and herbicides to find out the most effective, yet cost-effective management practice.

In New Mexico, researchers have treated heavily infested salt cedar areas for $600 an acre using herbicides. Initial economics indicate that it can be done for considerably less using fire and roller chopping, but Mitchell says it's too early to really evaluate mortality using this treatment method.

The herbicide option only became available recently when Arsenal labeling was approved for use in Texas. It was approved years earlier in New Mexico. This labeling approval, the researcher says, will be important but Mitchell hopes that the use of fire will help reduce the overall need for herbicides except perhaps on an individual plant treatment basis.

Some experts theorize that the increase in CRP land in recent years has caused an increase in boll weevil populations by providing good over-wintering habitat. For that reason Britton, Mitchell and others at the university are conducting research in conjunction with the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station to determine how fire impacts boll weevil populations. Preliminary results, Mitchell says, are very positive, showing possible total decimation of a population.

Mitchell is also studying how timing of burning impacts community composition. Right now his focus is on studying the effects of burning at different times of the year in a mesquite/tobosa grass community. Spring, summer and the traditional winter burns will be conducted at one, two, three, four and five year intervals to see if burning influences community structure from a grassland perspective, he explains, and then also to see if such burning cycles reduce undesirable plants like prickly pear.

He's also looking at the potential for managing mesquite with the use of annual burning in areas where fine fuels are sufficient.

"I'm not sure if it’s the ticket, but I suspect it will put extra stress on the mesquite plant," he says.

Other research includes fire's effect on weeping lovegrass growth and development and its impact on forage quality; fire's impact on ground nesting bird activity and small mammal activity, and its effects on beetle assemblages, to name a few. There is also some economic analysis being completed on the cost of conducting prescribed burns in juniper communities.

Britton and Mitchell continue the longstanding tradition of giving their students the best fire training possible. That training not only comes in the form of classroom instruction but also hands-on experience.

The department offers two graduate level classes in prescribed fire and one undergraduate class. The undergraduate class is a general overview of fire ecology and fire effects in systems throughout North America. In the first graduate course, students learn about fire effects in different ecosystems, they do some planning, and then they actually participate in some fires. The second graduate level class, called prescribed burning, requires each student to participate in a minimum of 20 burns.

"It’s a lot of work, a lot more than most classes demand, and it takes you away from other classes, so that makes it difficult," Mitchell concedes, "but we tell the students that if they can survive the class and those 20 burns they will really be burning as much as many throughout Texas and the U.S.

"We want our students to get to the point to where they are independent and confident as prescribed fire managers, planners and applicators," he continues. "Those are the kind of people we are lacking in the natural resource management profession; people who are trained, who can plan a fire, who can help landowners manage the area and actually apply that fire safely."

Mitchell believes that overall knowledge of burning and the general public's understanding of prescribed fire is improving, and slowly but surely, he says, society is beginning to recognize the benefits of fire.

He attributes the better understanding of fire in part to the 1988 Yellowstone wildfire which brought fire into the public eye.

"When it was blazing there was a lot of negative press, and in the spring the media did an overall poor job in their follow-up stories. Some did at least address the 'rebirth' of Yellowstone. It was good in that it opened people’s eyes to ecosystem cycling and how important fire is to that cycling process.

"It's been our own suppression activities," he continues, "that have created these unnatural situations which result in tremendous wildfires, yet fire suppression continues today. In 1998 the Texas Forest Service spent about $60 million fighting wildfires in Texas alone. Ranchers would be much better off if some of that money were spent on applying prescribed fires rather than fighting wildfires."

Despite the small steps forward, Mitchell concedes that growing environmental pressures coupled with urbanization continue to accentuate the negative. Some fear that the use of prescribed fire might even one day be outlawed as a management tool.

Because of that concern, a group of Texans following policy already established in other states like Florida and Kansas, came together to work toward securing similar legislation for the right to burn.

The Texas Prescribed Burning Coalition was made up of university personnel, state, and federal agencies as well as private institutions like the Welder Wildlife Refuge, the Nature conservancy, Farm Bureau, and private landowners. This coalition working together helped pass HB 2599, which establishes that right of individual landowners to burn. It also addresses the liability issue and establishes an oversight board responsible for developing the protocol for certifying prescribed burn managers.

"The legislation was manipulated quite a bit, but now we have prescribed burning legislation which is pretty monumental for Texas," Mitchell says. "I don’t know if I would go so far to say that we now have the inalienable right to apply fire to our rangeland," he continues. "It does give us something on the books that says that prescribed fire is an acceptable practice and if conducted under certain guidelines it is an acceptable tool."

The prescribed burning board, yet to be appointed, will be made up of personnel from the Texas Forest Service, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, Texas Agricultural Extension Service, Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, Texas Department of Agriculture, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, Texas Soil and Water Conservation Board, and the Texas Tech University Range, Wildlife and Fisheries Department. Additionally, five landowners will be appointed by the various agencies to sit on the board.

"I feel optimistic about the use of fire in Texas, at least west of I-35," Mitchell says. "East of there, where the population density increases, I have some concerns about its acceptability. As the population increases, the ability to manage smoke gets to be more of a concern."

He also sees real problems with the growing number of ranchettes springing up in the countryside.

"Usually those people buy those 40-acre ranchettes for the privacy and the aesthetic value that trees like live oaks create. They didn’t buy it to produce grass and livestock. If a fire gets away and burns their 25 or 40 acres, the reason they bought that ranchette is now gone. How are they going to react?"

In recent years considerable attention has been given to summer burning, and Texas Tech is now participating in some summer burns. They've initiated research to learn more about how summer fires impact certain ecological systems.

Mitchell concedes that one concern he has about summer burning is again the liability issue.

"If a fire does get away, what leg do we have to stand on? The work done by Tech on prescriptions that are considered standard today and are used today in many court cases says one shouldn't conduct a burn when the tempature is over 85 degrees.

"These prescriptions may not necessarily be legally binding," he continues, "but they are considered the guidelines for acceptable use for a prescribed fire, and you certainly increase your chances of having an escape when you burn outside those prescriptions.

"I can document numerous situations were we had safe burns under the prescribed conditions," Mitchell says, "and every fire that I’ve had to evaluate that was an escaped fire has occurred outside those prescribed boundaries."

Mitchell applauds the efforts of the Edwards Plateau Prescribed Burning Association, spearheaded in large part by Dr. Charles Taylor at the Sonora Experiment Station. The association is a cooperative of sorts, made up of landowners pooling labor and equipment to conduct burns on their properties.

"We hope the concept of prescribed burning cooperatives catches on," Mitchell says. "We hope that this co-op will function as a model and move to other areas of the state. We would like to see that happen in the Panhandle because Tech can’t meet all the needs for contract burning. We all have to work together, because fire is a tool we absolutely cannot afford to lose in managing our rangelands."