Step inside a prescribed burn at the Cloquet Forestry Center

Slideshow - CFC Prescribed Burns - 2024 - Nov

Prescribed burns fire-harden stands of red pine, like the Otter Creek unit, and make them more resilient to future forest fires. It also encourages the development of fire-loving woodland ecological communities, increasing landscape diversity and productivity. Image: Lane Johnson

In September 2024, firing specialists from TNC, FDL, and BIA assess the test fire for the Camp 8 unit and give the team the all-clear to move forward with burning. Test fires are used prior to moving forward with ignitions across the burn unit to check that the fire behavior - interactions of weather, fuels, and fire - will meet the prescription. Image: Kyle Gill

In this historical photo, fire-shaped open pine woodland conditions are seen at the CFC circa 1920s. Before colonization, the Ojibwe used planned fire to perpetuate and enhance landscape conditions necessary for survival. One of the main objectives in CFC’s current Burn Plan is to reintroduce fire-maintained pine woodlands that support a culturally important suite of fire-dependent species and set the stage for new generations of red and jack pine over the long term. Image: Carlton County Historical Society

Prescribed burns consume forest litter, duff, and woody debris. Heat from the fire kills fire-sensitive species and creates space for fire-dependent plants and, over time, the optimal conditions for the natural regeneration of pine. Image: Lane Johnson

A combination of wind direction, fuel load and moisture, topography, and fire effects objectives are considered when developing the ignitions plan. Drip torches, as seen in the hands of these fire stewards, are used to implement the plan and start a conversation, of sorts, between fire, the site and fuels, and fire stewards. Image: Lane Johnson

An active prescribed burn program provides a learning environment for present and future fire stewards, including CFANS students and professionals from across the region. The Department of Forest Resource’s Advanced Field Session brings field silviculture students to CFC each spring and the timing of the Otter Creek unit burn coincided with their class session. Image: Marcella Windmuller-Campione

Smoke settles across the Camp 8 burn unit on September 28, 2024 as the warm day cools off into night. Diligent preparation of burn unit perimeters and sub-unit fire breaks, like this one, keeps planned burns contained and makes for a successful and safe prescribed burn operation. Image: Kyle Gill

Fire-loving forest ecosystem communities rely on fire as both a community member and disturbance process that supports their collective health, well-being, and vitality. For example, wild blueberry bushes yield more berries following a fire and certain pine trees regenerate their offspring best when they distribute their seeds onto freshly burned soil. However, the predominant forest management methods of the past few centuries viewed fire as a destructive force and attempted to keep it from the landscape completely. This led to a reactive relationship with fire rather than a proactive one – both of which are needed across today’s modern landscape. The Cloquet Forestry Center (CFC) forest stewardship team is working with local partners to restore a proactive relationship with fire and fire-loving communities.

“So far in 2024, we’ve conducted two successful prescribed burns, one in the spring at the Otter Creek unit and one in the fall at the Camp 8 unit. This work builds upon the first-entry burns we conducted in May 2022,” said Kyle Gill, CFC Director of Operations and Forest Stewardship. “To reintroduce fire as an ecological and cultural process at the CFC, collaboration with several agencies is crucial to blend Western and Indigenous ways of knowing and stewarding Land. In particular, our partnership with the Fond du Lac (FDL) is pivotal in restoring fire to the CFC lands that reside on land reserved by FDL in the 1854 treaty. We’re lucky to be learning from and collaborating with Indigenous knowledge keepers and tribal fire practitioners.”

This connection with the FDL is especially critical due to the pre-colonial history of fire-maintained forest ecosystems on the lands where the CFC resides today. Ancestors of the FDL regularly burned to maintain landscape conditions that sustained Ojibwe livelihoods. The Camp 8 unit that was burned this year has a well-documented history of fire management.

Today, CFC staff collaborate with these partners to blend modern and historical fire management methods into their Land stewardship. When there are appropriate weather and fuel conditions, these prescribed fires use a combination of careful planning and burn unit preparation to ensure a safe and successful burn. Prescribed burns improve ecological community health by promoting the vitality of fire-loving plants, making overstory pine more resilient to future fires, and reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires – all factors that are beneficial to both human and non-human members of the community.

CFC’s approach includes community members, academic researchers and students, state agencies, and industry partners. This work provides new and exciting opportunities for research, education, and collaboration. 

Thank you to Fond du Lac Forestry & Fire Program, The Nature Conservancy, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Forest Stewards Guild, and University of Minnesota Silva Lab.