The Cloquet Forestry Center (CFC) forest stewardship team continues its work with local partners to restore a proactive relationship with fire and fire-loving communities.
Prescribed burns improve ecological community health by promoting the vitality of fire-loving plants, making overstory pine more resilient to future fires, and reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires – all factors that are beneficial to both human and non-human members of the community.
“So far in 2024, we’ve conducted two successful prescribed burns, one in the spring at the Otter Creek unit and one in the fall at the Camp 8 unit. This work builds upon the first-entry burns we conducted in May 2022,” says Kyle Gill, CFC Director of Operations and Forest Stewardship. “To reintroduce fire as an ecological and cultural process at the CFC, collaboration with several agencies is crucial to blend Western and Indigenous ways of knowing and stewarding Land. In particular, our partnership with the Fond du Lac (FDL) is pivotal in restoring fire to the CFC lands that reside on land reserved by FDL in the 1854 treaty. We’re lucky to be learning from and collaborating with Indigenous knowledge keepers and Tribal fire practitioners.”
This connection with the FDL is especially critical due to the pre-colonial history of fire-maintained forest ecosystems on the lands where the CFC resides today. Ancestors of the FDL regularly burned to maintain landscape conditions that sustained Ojibwe livelihoods. The Camp 8 unit that was burned this year has a well-documented history of fire management.
Today, CFC staff collaborate with these partners to blend modern and historical fire management methods into their Land stewardship. When there are appropriate weather and fuel conditions, these prescribed fires use a combination of careful planning and burn unit preparation to ensure a safe and successful burn.
The CFC thank the Fond du Lac Forestry & Fire Program, the Nature Conservancy, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Forest Stewards Guild, and UMN Silva Lab for their expertise and support of the programmatic burn program at CFC.
This article originally appeared on the CFC blog and has been adapted for the Fall 2024 Forest Scene (Issue 32). Access additional articles in the table of contents that follows the image description.
Image description: A forest with a grass path that has tire tracks in it is filled with smoke. The smoke clings mostly to the upper parts of the trees. In the foreground, brush and leaves are clearly visible.
The Forest Scene newsletter is published biannually in the spring and fall, featuring stories, research briefs, and updates from the Department of Forest Resources.
Click the following links to read articles from the Fall 2024 edition of Forest Scene (Issue 32):
- Department Message from Kristen C. Nelson
- New Faculty
- Semester Highlight: "New geodetic markers honor GIS instructors"
- New Research: "Rising carbon dioxide and nitrogen pollution may jointly threaten biodiversity"
- New Research: "Are winter weather trends impacting northern Minnesota logging businesses?"
- "Teamwork": Support from student assistants is critical to conducting our research. It also bolsters the next generation of leaders.
- News Bites:
- Field Questions: "Reducing vulnerability to wind damage in forest management planning"
- Alumnus Spotlight: Sawyer Scherer
- Faculty Retirement: Charlie Blinn
- Endnote