After a century of destructive ranching practices invasive grasses infest northwestern South Dakota but in the aftermath of the Pautre Fire a Republican US Senator added additional layers of bureaupublicanism to fuel treatments driving the cost of prescribed fires to over $2000 an acre.
The cost to We the People for managing the 2013 blaze was about $1 million. No livestock was lost and there was minimal damage to fences. There were no injuries and the only structure lost was a derelict rural schoolhouse. 3,519 acres of federal and 7,160 acres of private property were cleared of invasive grasses.
The US Forest Service knew an advancing cold front would aid the clearing of foot-high grasses and mowed a fire break instead of using a disk to make a fire line because disturbing soils can allow the infestation of plants that had been introduced by European settlers in the 19th Century. Snow showers ended the fire. According to Forest Service records an employee in the federal government misspelled “Pasture” as “Pautre” and the name stuck.
The US Forest Service knew an advancing cold front would aid the clearing of foot-high grasses and mowed a fire break instead of using a disk to make a fire line because disturbing soils can allow the infestation of plants that had been introduced by European settlers in the 19th Century. Snow showers ended the fire. According to Forest Service records an employee in the federal government misspelled “Pasture” as “Pautre” and the name stuck.
The researchers found no change in plant species composition, but they did see an increase in bare ground and reduction in litter the year of the fire, but no differences the following year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Station in Miles City, Mont., assessed the impacts of the fire on forage production. The researchers found the fire actually increased forage production more than 50% during the year of the fire. They also found grazing two months after the fire increased production the highest the following year. Research at the Central Grasslands Research Extension Center also has shown that April fires have no negative effect on forage production, and grazing one to two months following the burn increased new growth when rotationally grazed. [Farm Forum]
91% of fire departments in the chemical toilet are staffed by volunteers in a state where old Republicans are giving up the ghost yet Governor Kristi Noem is boasting she has recruited some 600 white supremacists to be cops but won't commit to prescribing burns or bolstering fire departments. Volunteers are mopping up after the Highway 20 Fire near Buffalo.
The Schoeder Fire outside of Rapid City is not believed to be a weaponized wildfire and local departments are pleading for the tools to react to an impending outbreak of wildland fire.
Today and tomorrow are perfect days for emergency managers and well-funded local volunteer fire departments in South Dakota to be burning road ditches creating buffers for later in the developing wildfire season. But that won't happen because South Dakota has no effective leadership and it’s cheaper to bill the feds after a wildfire than it is to conduct fuel treatments and more expeditious to litigate forgiveness than to ask for permission.
Learn more about why prescribed burns are so wrapped in red tape and costs are so much higher after the Pautre Fire linked here.
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