Landowners who use prescribed fire on their property may think of "burn season" as the dormant season. This “season” is roughly identified from Jan. 1 to March 31 when warm-season native plants are not actively growing. Dormant season burning is widely used across Oklahoma on private and public lands and everywhere in between. In most cases where dormant season fire is being used, it is successfully achieving the objectives meant for the burn. However, especially when managing your property for wildlife, burning during the growing season is another, potentially better, option depending upon your objective.

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What is your objective?

When determining the time of year to schedule a burn, it is crucial to first determine your objective for the fire. What do you want to accomplish? Depending on what that is, it could matter greatly which season of fire you use. Some examples of typical objectives that would be successfully accomplished with a dormant season fire might be to:  

1. Remove litter and slash from forested areas to allow for greater sunlight penetration and increased herbaceous plant response;  
2. Remove dead plant material from rangelands, pastures, hayfields to promote forage opportunities for wildlife and livestock; 
3. Create lekking habitat for lesser prairie-chicken; or  
4. Manage fuel load to reduce wildfire threat.  

Some examples of objectives that would necessitate a growing season burn might be:  

1. Increase native grass and forb diversity for wildlife forage;  
2. Extend availability of palatable forage for livestock later into the summer and fall;  
3. Control encroachment of woody species (like eastern red cedar or winged elm) into uplands; or 
4. Create patchy, mosaic landscape of burned and unburned areas for northern bobwhite and wild turkey. 

The biggest take away from these objective comparisons should not be that one season of burn is necessarily better than the other, but rather that using both growing season and dormant season fire can allow you to accomplish more objectives and increase diversity on your landscape.

Diversify for Wildlife and Livestock

When managing entire properties for wildlife, livestock, or both, diversity is key. Patch burning (for wildlife) or patch burn-patch grazing (for livestock) not only creates diversity of habitats across your property for wildlife, but, in the case of livestock operations, patch burn-patch grazing can extend the availability of quality standing forage for livestock further into the year. By burning smaller units on a 2-3 year rotation and diversifying your season of burn (as opposed to burning your entire property all at once during the dormant season) you create several varying stages of plant succession with your “time since burn,” which is crucial for wildlife habitat diversity. Cattle will naturally gravitate toward re-sprouting, tender forage following a burn no matter the burn season, but doing this also provides various important areas that wildlife like deer, turkey, quail, and other wildlife species use for loafing, foraging, nesting, bedding, brooding and even lekking sites for prairie-chickens.

Burn Season Considerations

Again, both seasons of fire have their place, and, in fact, they are complementary to each other when diverse land management is the goal. There are a few things to consider, though, before you plan and conduct a fire during the growing season. 

• Weather: During the growing season, weather in Oklahoma tends to be more predictable (generally, prevailing southerly winds and favorable relative humidities). By allowing yourself to burn in the growing season, you have immediately increased your possibility for more “good burn days,” and this can allow you more time to finish your burns scheduled for the year. However, Oklahoma summers are hot, and, trust me, it is HOT on a growing season fire. These weather conditions are harder on the crew, so bring plenty of drinking water and plan to have a few extra crew members on stand-by to give others a break.  
• Fire Behavior: Generally, and in my experience, growing season fires are more manageable. They tend to have shorter flame heights, are slower moving, and are less likely to escape or jump a firebreak. The slower moving behavior of a growing season fire equates to longer residence time which makes these fires as or more effective at controlling brush encroachment. Woody plants, like eastern red cedar and winged elm as tall as 6-8 feet can be effectively top-killed so long as there is plenty of fuel surrounding them.   
• Fuel: Growing season fires do not carry well (or at all) through forested areas. Closed canopy forests (where fuel is mostly leaf litter with little to no herbaceous plants) will almost certainly not burn under prescription during the growing season, so these areas should be burned during the dormant season when leaf litter is dry enough to light and carry the fire. However, grasslands, shrublands, and savannahs burn well during this time. A critical aspect that must be considered in order to conduct a successful growing season burn on these landscapes is fuel management. During the growing season, of course, the actively growing plants are green with higher moisture content, therefore it is necessary to have a sufficient amount of contiguous, dead herbaceous plant material left over from the previous growing season(s) in order to carry the fire. An obvious time where this becomes especially important in the planning process is with livestock operations. If you are planning on conducting a growing season fire on a unit that you typically graze during the summer and into late fall, consider 1). Deferring grazing on that particular unit from August 1 to July 1 (or until whenever you conduct your growing season burn that following year), OR 2). Only lightly graze so that your livestock do not take or trample too much of the residual, dead fuel needed for your subsequent growing season burn. 

Always discuss your plans for prescribed burning with professionals from Oklahoma Department of Wildlife, Oklahoma Prescribed Burn Association, Oklahoma Forestry, and Natural Resources Conservation Service to ensure that your burn is planned and conducted safely and effectively. Although the dormant burning season is coming to a close, don’t hang up your drip torch for the year just yet. Take a break, relax and get ready to plan your growing season burn.