Chadron State College plans prescribed burn

The burn will be conducted on from seven to nine acres just to the east of the City of Chadron water tank in an area of native rangeland vegetation that was not burned by the Spotted Tail fire last July. The fire is expected to take place about mid-morning.

The burn will involve the Crawford Volunteer Fire Department, which will be using it for fire behavior and fire fighting training. Firemen from other departments may also participate.

The project will be led by Lori Jeffery, a CSC student from Lisco and a participant in the Forest Service’s Student Career Experience Program. She will be assisted by Clint Phillips of the USFS and Chuck Butterfield, head of the range management program at CSC.

Butterfield said the burn is intended to provide those taking the training with a live fire exercise and to remove excessive litter levels that have built up over 40-plus years, causing excessive grassland fuel loads.

Butterfield noted that the region evolved with periodic fires. As man succeeded in preventing and containing fires, large fuel loads developed, contributing to catastrophic fires like occurred last summer.

Introducing fire back into the ecosystem is a sound management practice that has been practiced in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas for almost 50 years now, Butterfield said. Numerous Prescribed Burn Task Forces have been established in Nebraska in recent years with several hundred acres being burned each year.

If the conditions are not favorable for the prescribed burn Sunday, an attempt will be made to conduct the burn the following weekend. Butterfield said the burn will not take place if the wind is from a direction that would send the smoke into the main portion of the campus or the community.