For this article, we caught up with Daniel Mushrush, a sixth-generation Kansan and rancher in the Flint Hills who oversees controlled burning on the tallgrass prairie.
Every spring, tallgrass prairie throughout the Flint Hills is set ablaze. Why do we see controlled burns in the region?
We started doing controlled burns during a severe drought, not because we wanted to but because we had to. The Eastern half of the state receives enough rain to support tree growth. As European settlers came to Kansas, trees took over. Trees should be where trees should be, but they can be invasive. Every tree in the Flint Hills is a weed. There’s not a single sacred tree in the Flint Hills. For thousands of years, without the encroachment of trees, the tallgrass prairie has supported hundreds of species. All those trees create soil erosion and crowd out native species. Even a couple of trees every hundred yards has a significant impact on prairie chickens.
Initially, the tallgrass prairie extended from the 100th meridian [which is considered the western edge of The Great Plains] to western Kentucky and Tennessee. The tallgrass prairie, which was once a pretty common ecosystem, is now endangered. Somewhere around ninety-eight percent of the remaining tallgrass prairie is in the Flint Hills.
How do we know the tallgrass prairie ecosystem is endangered?
For the past thirty or so years, satellites have taken images of the whole Great Plains. We now have the data to show the encroachments of invasive species - you can see all the cedar trees taking over the prairie.
The science is showing us that we’re losing this battle.
What are the pros and cons of controlled burning?
It keeps the invasive species at bay so we can maintain biodiversity. The ecosystem has evolved with fire; the native species have evolved with fire. The fire chars the earth pitch black, and burns off invasive species. But, in a few weeks, the land will be as green as Ireland, as the native species re-grow. If there’s no fire, we’ll lose the Flint Hills in twenty-five years. We want to make sure the Flint Hills stays the Flint Hills.
The air quality is something that we’re trying to deal with. There are programs to control how much smoke is generated and where it goes. The burns occur mid-March to May 1, but to keep people safe on the ground, there are probably ten days that are actually safe [for burning]. Nobody does [controlled burns] for fun. We [the people overseeing the burns] hate it more than the people it bothers in Manhattan.
How many acres are burned each year?
Not enough. We log every burn with the sheriff’s department, when it was lit, when it was put out. [Editor’s note: The Konza Environmental Education Program reports that between 3000 and 5000 acres are burned each year on just the Konza Prairie. Kansas does not have a centralized reporting/data collection system for controlled burns, so the number of acres burned each year is unknown.]
What do you wish more people knew about controlled burns?
They have been happening for thousands and thousands of years. Before us, the Native American tribes here carried them out, and before that they occurred naturally via lightning. [This practice] is science-informed and it’s for the greater good. This is bigger than the city of Manhattan and the state of Kansas. This is an ecological state of emergency. If a coral reef is worth saving, then so is the prairie.
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To learn more about tallgrass prairie ecology, visit the Konza Environmental Education Program’s website at keep.konza.k-state.edu/prairieecology/fire and the Konza Prairie Biological Station’s website at kpbs.konza.k-state.edu.