A group of SUNY-ESF students are learning how to fight fire with...fire. Students participated in a controlled burn at Heiberg Memorial Forest.
Forest and Fire Ecology Professor Andrew Vander Yacht led the group. It's the second prescribed burn he's done with ESF students. Last semester students took part as part of their classwork, this time it's a smaller group made up of all volunteers. He said there are several benefits of a prescribed burn in forest management.
"The objectives that we have here out here to restore prairie flora and do some benefit for pollinators and restore a vegetation type that is disappearing from the landscape without the presence of disturbance like fire," Vander Yacht said.
Donned in a Nomex flame-resistant suit, leather gloves, and hardhat, Jade Haumann, a master's student at ESF, lit the first flame.
"I was anticipating a huge overwhelm just based on our fall burn," Haumann said. "[The fall] was, I don't know, kind of underwhelming. So this is great. This is working out really nice."
The students rotate through different positions. The ignitions team lighting the burn lines and practicing different burn techniques like strip heading and ring fire. The holding team uses metal tools and mats to stamp out any fire that gets out of control. Others focus on making weather-quality measurements as the fire blazes through the plot.
Lily John, a senior at ESF, participated in her first controlled burn.
"Definitely there's an element of fear because it's fire and you know inherently that it's dangerous but there's definitely a thrill to it," John said. "And knowing how much impact we can have on the land. It is an important tool for preventing wildfires from being worse because wildfire is natural, but because of the suppression, that's why wildfires have become so devastating. So using it as a tool rather than letting it get out of our control."
A California study found the risk of high-intensity wildfires was reduced by 60 percent in areas previously treated by low-intensity fires like a prescribed burn.
