Fire Management Planning

Fire Effects for Restoring Oak Savannas, Forests, and Prairies

Natural Resource Conservation LLC has worked extensively with Metroparks Toledo in northwestern Ohio on long-term (20 + year) ecological restoration projects to restore globally rare oak savanna ecosystems as well as sustain oak forests and prairies.  In several contracted projects, we have worked with managers with Metroparks Toledo for monitoring long-term results and developing innovative strategies to overcome restoration limitations.  Recently, we implemented an adaptive management trial with Metroparks Toledo to identify which sizes of trees among different species are able to be top killed during prescribed fires.  This information is crucial to planning under what conditions burns need to occur to achieve desired results. 

Example of a fire effects plot established in 2018 by Natural Resource Conservation LLC with Metroparks Toledo fire managers.  The study identified a consistent relationship where 97% of red maple (Acer rubrum) were top killed by fire (most did resprout) if their trunks were less than 13 cm (5 inches) in diameter.  Conversely, only 6% of red maple trees larger than 5 inches in diameter were top killed.

Several publications have been developed with Metroparks Toledo fire managers as co-authors detailing oak savanna, woodland, and oak forest restoration and effects of prescribed fires. 

A recent example, which was on the cover of Natural Areas Journal:

Abella, S.R., L.A. Sprow, K.S. Menard, T.A. Schetter, and L.G. Brewer. 2023. Changes in groundlayer communities with variation in trees, sapling layers, and fires during 34 years of oak savanna restoration. Natural Areas Journal 43:243-252.