Thank You Volunteer Prescribed Crew!

On February 25 we lit our first prescribed fire of 2009 and over the next few days, we'll be lighting our last until the fall. The last 8 weeks have presented us with the great fortune of overlapping perfect weather conditions and gracious volunteerism!

Spring 2009 Whiterock Conservancy prescribed fire specs:

-Grand total of 1864 acres

-26 burn units

-25 volunteers

-Over 270 hours of volunteer timeWe are so very thankful to all of our volunteers! Only one of our burns was successfully fired by Whiterock Conservancy staff alone--each of the 25 other burn units necessitated bigger crews--and our volunteers all stepped up to help. Whiterock Conservancy also teamed together with 6 neighboring landowners to conduct prescribed fires on adjacent land, and was thankful to receive access to drive fire vehicles on a neighboring piece of land to burn a prairie remnant. Community awareness about prescribed fire has grown too, as many folks driving through or by the Whiterock valley see the first black, and now bright green areas that have been recently burned.

The prescribed fire program at Whiterock Conservancy is an extremely fulfilling and learningful part of my job. Each burn is different: different fuels, management objective, weather, crew, etc.--and each burn makes for an incredible lesson about controlling prescribed fires. While going out after a burn to see what is coming back up is exciting, a great joy of mine is seeing people who haven't ever burned before enjoying themselves and taking their knowledge with them back to their own land. Now we'll put away all of the burn equipment for the summer, and just watching things grow now (below is a birdsfoot violet blooming in recently burned area)

Thank you for all of your help!!