Hillsborough County's Prescribed Fire Program Sustaining Massive Success

Hillsborough County's Prescribed Fire Program Sustaining Massive Success

Florida is a leader in prescribed fire

For a longer, in-depth explanation and analysis, please read the extended version of this article.

Florida is the champion of many things, but one accomplishment we’re certainly proud of is maintaining our status as one of the leading states in prescribed fire acreage. You read that right! In 2019, Florida executed prescribed burns over 1 million acres of land – one of only two states in the nation to accomplish this feat. Many people associate wildland fire with California, Colorado, and other western states. As we move into the wildfire season for the Southeastern US, it’s important to remember that most fires larger media outlets typically report on are catastrophic wildfires, not prescribed fires.

Prescribed fire is #goodfire

Since Hillsborough County’s Environmental Lands Management Department prioritizes safety and public awareness, most of what you’ve heard about this practice from us has been anything from reducing wildfire risk in your community to smoke management tools. Certified Prescribed Burn Managers employ these tools to execute burns with minimal human impact. Our most frequently asked question is usually along the lines of “But why do you have to burn down the forest in order to take care of it?”. The short answer is that it’s necessary for both the safety of residents and the health of conservation lands.

As land managers, our job is to be good stewards of these natural areas we are entrusted to manage and protect. Our dedicated staff spend countless hours utilizing their years of experience to battle relentless invasive species and execute restoration projects with the goal of enhancing the 68,000 acres of protected land for future generations to enjoy. If fire were a bad thing, simply put, we wouldn’t utilize the practice in land management.

So...what are the actual benefits?

Our department's Environmental Lands Research and Analysis (EL-RAT) Team analyzed years of Landsat data to determine whether the various habitats we manage are within the accepted Fire Return Interval (FRI) for each habitat. This term refers to the scientific determination of a specific habitat's required time frame to experience fire to remain "healthy".  Gillian Seymour, Environmental Lands Management Specialist, worked tirelessly to accumulate and analyze massive amounts of data to determine the FRI for the 68,000 acres we manage. Of the habitat with a recommended FRI between 1-7 years, we are proud report that an impressive 67% of this habitat falls within the recommended interval. The image shown illustrates a lower-to-nonexistent occurrence of these species in the yellow-colored areas, or ones that fall outside of the habitat's FRI. Yellow dots indicate listed plant observations. 

Wildlife rely on fire, too!

Florida wildlife that rely on regular prescribed fire include:

• Indigo snake
• Northern bobwhite
• Red-cockaded woodpecker
• Fox squirrel
• Gopher tortoise
• Florida scrub jay
• Bachman's sparrow
• Wild turkey
• Florida grasshopper sparrow

Florida scrub Jay
Craig Faulhaber, FWC

Not only are many of these species endemic, endangered, or threatened, but they overwhelmingly rely on fire to maintain the habitats they live in. The Florida scrub jay, for example, will completely abandon fire-excluded habitat after a period of time. If fire is excluded on a long enough timeline, succession will occur in some ecosystems and the subsequent habitat loss will expedite this decline. Fire exclusion happens for a number of reasons, but at the forefront is urbanization of an area. When Certified Prescribed Burn Managers consider a unit to be burned, sites near urban areas make managing smoke impacts more difficult. Wind speed, direction, lift, and more must be taken into account - when these conditions are not met, the burn will not take place. Fire exclusion can be a conscious effort or a forced consequence of less than ideal conditions.

Environmental Lands Management prescribed fire success story

Our Prescribed Burn Team is happy to report that since 2017, our treated acreage (meaning acres that actually burned on a prescribed fire) has risen each year. So far in 2021, we've already reached the 4,021 acre mark! As we continue to increase our qualified staff, these numbers will only continue to grow and our 68,000 acres will hopefully see an increase from the current 67% of habitat within the recommended FRI.

• To stay up-to-date on Hillsborough County's Prescribed Burning program, click here.

• To sign up for prescribed fire email notifications on Hillsborough County-managed managed conservation lands, click here.