(Area) Prescribed burns have become a key management tool for Iowa’s State Parks and Wildlife Areas.
The Iowa DNR’s Bryan Hayes says a lot of areas have burn plans every three to five years. “Mainly to set back woody vegetation, to improve grassland habitat, improve forest land habitat, prescribed burns are an important tool for the Iowa DNR managing land and a lot of acres.”
Public areas that go without prescribed burning run the risk of excessive woody vegetation. Hayes uses Meadow Lake as an example. “For 30-40 years nothing was really done to that. It ended up being a lot of cedar trees, high density stems, invasive plants, it just lost all the native ground cover there because of lack of disturbance. ” Hayes says, “So to set Meadow Lake back it has taken a lot of work, a lot of effort.”
