CERA Forest Prescribed Fire

Experimental fire plots have been established in upland white oak-hickory forest at the Grinnell College 365-acre Conard Environmental Research Area (CERA) in east-central Jasper County, Iowa.

A subset of the plots are burned each year in the fall, usually in November or early December, after most of the groundlayer vegetation has senesced and the oak trees have dropped their leaves.

This video demonstrates the way in which fire moves slowly through a deciduous woodland. Fires in woodland in Iowa are typically "cool" fires, which do not consume all of the dead plant litter on the surface nor the coarse woody debris. If woody debris is dry enough, it may catch fire and slowly smolder.

The smoke in the video indicates that we had steady air flow through the trees, providing predictable fire and smoke behavior. This 25 x 25 m plot took approximately 20 minutes to burn.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• CERA
• prescribed fire
• forest
• experimental plots