Prairie Burn September 30, 2023

On the last day of September 2023, approximately 25 students and two teachers from OSU’s  School of Environment and Natural Resources (SENR) “Introduction to Wildland Fire Management” class came  to the Prairie to conduct a controlled burn as an educational activity. They set fire to  the southern quarter of the prairie. Below, see an aerial view of them all in yellow traversing the prairie from east to west, in mesmerizing ant-like fashion.

Here’s a video of the team eventually making its way to the southwest corner of the Prairie.

This photo taken facing south along the west edge of the Prairie shows, in the foreground, an area formerly occupied by a dense stand of mainly dogwood shrubs. With them having been herbicide-killed, that approximately 300 ft. x 100 ft. area now includes a good fuel load as the woody debris is standing there, augmented by honeysukle shrub stems brought in from an area along Grave Creek a few hundred feet east. This may be a good candidate for burning next year.