March 2021 • Nebraskaland 51
the work. After a three-year cutting siege, piles of cedars
littered the WMA.
In 2006 came "the big burn," a 1,300-acre spring prescribed
fi re that would kill small cedars not machine-cut and turn
those tree piles into the funeral pyres of the invading horde.
"I had never burned an area that big before," Seitz said.
"All the planning took a few years off my life." The prescribed
fi re included portions of four adjacent ranches and the
neighboring Rock Creek Station State Historical Park.
Although using the neighbors' trail roads as fi re breaks made
the burn larger, it accomplished similar goals on their lands
and also made the burn less complicated and safer.
On an April morning, after the sun had dried the dew from
the prairie grass, the fi re was lit. As the sun climbed and the
temperature rose and the humidity dropped, the fi re gained
intensity. Most dramatically, when the grass-eating fi re
ignited cedar piles, they boiled out 60-foot-tall fl ames and
oily pillars of smoke. The towering plume was picked up by
radar and this "isolated storm cloud" baffl ed the weather
staff of one local news channel.
As the smoky dusk set in and only charred cedar piles still
smoldered, Seitz's tension eased — the burn was complete. A
new worry, however, entered his mind. When cedar piles near
ravines burned, the fl ames scorched the trunks and branches
of some oaks, and he feared they would die. Only time would
tell if the bur oaks, Seitz's favorite tree, would survive.
Through cutting and fi re, about 90 percent of Rock
Glen's cedars have been removed. A few dense stands were
intentionally left in deep canyons where they naturally
occurred as thermal and security cover for deer. Since 2006,
a few hundred acres of the WMA are burned annually to
keep cedars and other woody plants in check and refresh
the prairie. Herbicides also have been applied to the trunks
of hackberry and other spreading deciduous species to speed
In 2006 "the big burn" at Rock Glen and surrounding private ranches consumed live eastern red cedars
and piles of cut cedars, which was vital to restoring the area's prairies and oak woodlands.
PHOTO
BY
ERIC
FOWLER
