West Texas Rangelands
West Texas RangelandsWe hope to provide a variety of information from current news stories, prescribed burning, wildfires, brush control, and cow-calf management!

National Prescribed Fire Resource Mobilization Strategy

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This summer the National Prescribed Fire Resource Mobilization Strategy was released. The plan calls for six prescribed fire implementation teams to be created that will incorporate prescribed fire practitioners and expertise into a management structure.  This concept would support the implementation of prescribed fire at multiple organizational and complex levels. These teams would be tailored to meet specific needs and facilitate multiple projects simultaneously. Each function that supports the implementation of prescribed burning can be scaled up or down at any level, to ensure that logistical, financial, planning, safety, and public information are staffed accordingly. 

 

 

[Read more…] about National Prescribed Fire Resource Mobilization Strategy

Thinking like a grassland…means thinking BIG!

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Thinking like a grassland.

What does this mean to you?

Well, to Dr. David Augustine from the USDA-ARS Station in Fort Collins, CO and others, it means large-scale movement of many species.  This large-scale movement enables the Great Plains evolved strategies to contend with drought, floods, and even wildfires…in a nutshell….extreme variability in weather resulting in low forage production.

Currently, our pattern of land ownership and use of Great Plains grasslands challenges native species conservation.   For example, too much management is focused at the scale of individual pastures or ranches, limiting opportunities to conserve landscape-scale processes such as fire, animal movement, and metapopulation dynamics.

“Figure 1. Potential natural vegetation of US portion of the North American Great Plains, adapted from Kuchler (1964).”

 

“Estimated extent of 5 major ecoregions of the US Great Plains, subdivided into 14 vegetation communities as mapped by Kuchler (1964; see Fig. 1). For each community, we present the estimated percent of the landscape in each of 10 land cover types based on an integration of cropland data layers (2011e2017) with the 2011 National Land Cover Database.”

 

Opportunities to increase the scale of grassland management include:

  1. Spatial prioritization of grassland restoration and reintroduction of grazing and fire.
  2. Finding creative approaches to increase the spatial scale at which fire and grazing can be applied to address watershed to landscape-scale objectives.
  3. Developing partnerships among government agencies, landowners, businesses, and conservation organizations that enhance cross-jurisdiction management and address biodiversity conservation in grassland landscapes, rather than pastures.

Thinking like a grassland should be pretty easy for us range managers…open spaces, big country, and…thinking big!!

For an in-depth view of “Thinking Like a Grassland: Challenges and Opportunities for
Biodiversity Conservation in the Great Plains of North America”, click on this link: Thinking like a grassland Augustine et al., 2020 REM.

More than just wildfire

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Today, as the grass grows, the days get warmer, and we begin summer my mind drifts to what is to come.  I promise I am not a negative or pessimistic person. However, I do believe that we as land stewards, managers
 of all things range, we have an obligation to be proactive in what is sure to be an impressive fire year.  Three years ago on June 28th, the Yarnell Hill Fire wreaked havoc and heartache on the west side of highway 89 in Arizona.  Fast-forward to June 8th, 2016 the Tenderfoot Fire burned over 4,000 acres on the east side of the Yarnell Hill Fire scar on the opposite side of highway 89 forcing another evacuation of Yarnell, Arizona.  As Texans, you are probably wondering what the hell does this have to do with us.  Easy…it could happen to us.  Impressive spring precipitation was a blessing, but fast-forward a couple of weeks and our outlook will change tremendously.

As we ramp up for summer prescribed burns and wildfires.  Please, take the time to read “Honor the Fallen – The Big Lie” by Mark Smith.  Whether you belong to an agency, burn association, or you just like to carry a torch, please take a moment to honor and learn from those making the same high-risk decisions you make everyday.

On another note, Dad (in the feature picture) has decided to keep fighting the good fight this summer and is on a Type 2 IMT in Idaho, Jake, my brother, helps out when needed for Type 2 crews and engines in Arizona.

These are the men that I honor.  They are apart of our fire community…even in Texas.

vxfx