Nebraskaland

May 2024 • Nebraskaland 51 100 people showing up for some. They arrive in rusty ranch pickups or pulling trailers loaded with ATVs, each assigned a specifi c job and handling it without question. "Trying to get farmers and ranchers to cooperate, you might think it's easier to pile BBs," Alberts said. "We've never had an issue." The safety record of the burn crews is excellent. Rarely have fi res spread outside the unit. More wildfi res have been sparked while landowners burned piles of cut cedars during the winter, a process now combined with the prescribed burns. "They've mastered the use of high-intensity fi re," said Dillon Fogarty, an assistant professor and woody invasion ecologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who studied the region as a graduate student and documented their success. "By doing that, they can manage the patches of trees, mature trees, the seedlings and the seeds during that single application of prescribed fi re." After killing less than half of the cedars in those initial burns, "now some of the landowners aren't pleased if they don't kill 90 percent or more of the cedar trees inside a unit," Moore said. The groups are now looking at bigger burns, up to 10,000 acres, and at burning at times other than late-winter and early-spring, when most burns are currently conducted. They know they need to expand if they are going to keep restoring grasslands and maintain the ones they already have. To stay ahead of the problem, landowners need to burn every 5 to 7 years to control new cedar growth. Many have already burned their land twice, and others need to soon, before new trees get too big to control with fi re alone. The second burn is easier, with little if any mechanical clearing required. And with so many acres having been treated, it is safer, with fewer cedars to send burning embers outside the burn units. "We understand that it's not a one-year, one-time fi x-all," Stout said. "We understand it's a management process, and we have to go back and maintain it." Cost vs Benefit Planning and preparing for these burns typically takes three years before the fi rst drip torch is lit. Each landowner must get any necessary tree-cutting done, clearing fi re breaks, large trees on the perimeter and scattered mature trees that might not burn. They also need to defer grazing on the property in the year leading up to the burn to ensure there is enough grass to fuel the fi re, carry it through the unit and kill young cedars, and burn hot enough to consume the seeds still waiting to sprout. When their turn to burn rolls around, weather must cooperate. Drought can postpone burns for a year — and has more than once. The cost of mechanical control can be daunting, averaging $250 per acre in the region. Where fi rebreaks must be cut by hand in dense stands on slopes too steep for heavy equipment, it might soar to $2,500. "That seems astronomical, and it is," said Sundstrom. "But if you do that and can treat hundreds and hundreds of acres [with fi re], and you don't have that cost over a lot of acres, then it's economical." Deferring grazing is another expense, as landowners must rent pastures elsewhere or providing hay to feed their stock. There are cost-share programs available from numerous sources (see sidebar) that Moore says typically cover 75 percent of these expenses. Doing nothing to control cedars is not a good option, said Sundstrom, who sees both sides of the equation as a landowner and tree cutting contractor. Property taxes aren't adjusted according to the amount of tree cover, even though the land can feed fewer cows. And the cost of control can Hudson Stout lights the perimeter of a prescribed burn with a drip torch as others follow in a truck, dousing fl ames not heading into the burn unit. A job for young legs, Stout covered about 4 miles on the 3,400-acre burn, while another volunteer did the same on the other half. Skeletons of cedar trees stand in an area south of Maxwell treated with prescribed fi re in 2020, a stark contrast to the cedar-choked draws stretching north to the Platte River Valley. While landowners in the region have made signifi cant headway in controlling the woody growth, there is still much work to do.

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