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Given the city’s history, Chicagoans might have more reason than some to fear fire. Even today, most Chicago school children can tell you about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 that may or may not have been started by Mrs. O’Leary’s cow.
But they might not know just how important fire was in shaping and maintaining the vast prairies that once covered most of Illinois. Or how useful it can be today in the right circumstances.
Like wind and water, fire is a powerful natural force that has shaped life on Earth. It helps determine where different types of habitats exist around the world. The prairies of Illinois, for example, need fire to keep invasive shrubs from taking over, add nutrients to the soil and stimulate growth of native grasses and wildflowers. Tropical rainforests in the Amazon basin, on the other hand, cannot survive regular or intense fires.
When we read or hear about fire in the media, it’s generally a story about the awesome destruction and devastation that fire can wreck upon a landscape or a community. In the wrong place or at the wrong intensity, fire is the enemy.
When utilized carefully by trained land managers, volunteers and private landowners, however, fire can provide many benefits to people and nature. Ranchers use fire to rid pastures of invasive species that, left unchecked, can result in the loss of productive rangeland and thousands of dollars in annual income. Forestry professionals use fire to remove excessive tree and leaf litter from wild lands near urban communities to protect them from catastrophic fires, saving lives, property and millions of dollars in fire-fighting expenses. Thousands of land stewards are using fire regularly on public and private lands to return our native forests, prairies and wetlands to their former glory.
What The Nature Conservancy is Doing.
The Nature Conservancy’s Global Fire Initiative is providing leadership and working with others around the world to find solutions that allow fire to play a role in places where it benefits nature and people and keep fire out of places where it is destructive.
The Conservancy is the only international conservation group with a dedicated team of fire ecologists and fire management specialists. Each year, the Conservancy burns about 100,000 acres of its own land and assists partners in burning another 150,000 acres. We have more than 100 fire-trained staff in more than 35 states that meet or exceed the U.S. federal fire management standards, and our record of success in implementing safe prescribed burns is one of the nation’s best. The Conservancy is also rapidly expanding the on-the-ground fire management capacity of staff and partners in Latin America and the Caribbean.
At Nachusa Grasslands, near Rockford, Illinois, trained volunteer land stewards use fire to restore and maintain one of Illinois’ largest and last remaining prairie landscapes. A remnant of the once vast landscape that greeted Illinois pioneers 200 years ago, today Nachusa is a model for prairie restoration and a training site for public and private land managers interested in controlled fire, weed management and natural areas restoration.
Action starts when people talk.
In the midst of the struggle to balance the threat of fire with the benefits it provides to people and nature, there are reasons for hope and things we can do as individuals. First, start a conversation about the issue with friends, family and colleagues. Take a look at our Conversation Starters related to habitat restoration for relevant and compelling facts. Consider a trip to Nachusa Grasslands with family or friends where you will join other volunteers from Chicago and throughout Illinois in collecting and planting seeds or removing invasive plants at a Saturday morning work day. Learn more about our work by visiting related projects on the Conservancy’s Web site, nature.org.
