Prescribed Fire April 5th or so

P1010005
Originally uploaded by cgoble72.

Last week the park did another prescribed burn. One of the purposes was to try and push back the creep of the aspen trees. Old images my grandfather has seem to show few aspen's on Knights hill. Also there seemed to have been a lot less of them down by Kootenai's old house.

While it is doubtful the rather week fire did too much damage to the trees, new grass is already coming up. An older fire they burned on the east side of Knights lake by the river showed quite a lot of new growth in the spring and the following years.

Of course one also has to worry about the effect on wildlife. For instance my Grandmother reminded me how one of the burns over by the turnoff to chief displaced or killed the burrowing owl there. Also the elusive black footed ferrets might also be affected. Of course, it is doubtful these things would have too signifacnt of an effect with the localized, low intensity flames one is able to risk with prescribed burns.