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- Fire is an essential part of all the ecosystems here
in the U.S. and throughout the world.
One of the biggest issues landowners have
is getting fire back on their property.
And I'm trying to do that,
again, concerns about liability, about risk
and things like that have always been a big concern
for private land owners.
So one of the ways that we've found
and probably the best way that we've found
to get fire back on the ground
and to get private landowners burning
is through the use of Prescribed Burn Associations.
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- To me, that's a group of landowners
with a common interest to put fire on the landscape
workin' together to maximize their resources
- [Katie] It's neighbors helping neighbors.
Pooling resources to get the job done,
to improve our range lands in an effective, safe manner.
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- The biggest one is they're scared of it gettin' away
and the liability involved with it.
- People are reluctant to burn
because of various reason, including being just scared.
They're scared of the fire, of escapes,
and they don't have the knowledge
and the ability to burn, or the resources.
- One's a sociological barrier.
I mean, fire has always been portrayed
as big and evil and dangerous.
And quite frankly, I think a lot of folks are scared of it.
And they don't realize that under prescribed conditions,
you can fairly well predict what your fire's gonna do,
and it's a fairly safe practice.
- I think some of the barriers that people have
are limitations of personnel, resources, equipment,
the skill base, the knowledge,
and their fear of fire, their general fear of fire
because of lack of education about it
and how to apply it to the land effectively.
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- The first thing that they does
is get some people out there
actually see fire on the landscape.
See a fire that's been intentionally lit
under a prescribed set of conditions
and it behaves like it's supposed to.
And at the end of the day, there's no, or minimal escape.
The smoke clears, it's burned
like it was supposed to be burned, nobody's hurt.
And two or three times when you experience that,
all of a sudden you're one of fire's biggest proponents.
- You get a group of people together to burn,
they all learn how to burn.
They work with each other.
After a while, they basically decrease the chance
that a fire is ever gonna get away.
And therefore the liability of a set of group of people
that works together, in my mind sort of disappears.
- Like we first started out, it gives a landowner
a place to go and a tool to use
that minimizes their liability.
That's what keeps people from doin' it.
And that's the biggest benefit that they have.
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- The structure of the burn associations varies
because it's kinda left up to
the burn associations itself
exactly how they wanna run the organization.
Typically they'll have a president,
a vice president, a treasurer.
Those I think are the three offices
that they really need to have.
And the bylaws are structured to where
the state organization actually has a generic set of bylaws
that local burn associations can adopt if they want to.
They basically adopt bylaws
and elect the president, vice president, and the treasurer.
And then the body of the burn association
basically dictates how that burn association is run.
Whether they want to structure it where,
I know some burn associations actually want to
vet all the burn plans that burn association members
are going to implement.
And there are other burn associations that don't do that.
So it can range from being really formal
to very informal.
Typically, I think they're relatively informal though.
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- [John] There's three key factors that we need to consider
when when starting a PBA.
First and foremost, we've got to gather together
a group of interested landowners.
Identify that group of people that wanna start using fire,
wanna start putting fire on the land,
get those folks together.
The next thing that's most important
is we've got to pick a leader from in that group
or identify a leader well before we start the meeting
or get the process goin'.
Somebody that wants to step up
and just take that leadership role.
And then the third final thing,
and probably one of the most important things
is havin' someone there to help provide
technical assistance and advice.
This is usually somebody from a federal agency,
state agency, cooperative extension
that can help this group, nurture them along,
help 'em with writing fire plans,
help 'em with getting grant money to find stuff
for equipment, for training.
Also help 'em to determine burn days, how to burn do that.
- I just took the bylaws off the OPBA website,
filled in the blanks
and that's kinda how we got started rollin'.
Because really I think, if you're gonna be an organization
you probably oughta set your foundation first,
that way you gotta start pointing,
you can start building off of that.
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- We like for people to attend at least three
prescribed burns before we will in turn
go burn on their property.
We want them to participate
in as many of prescribed fires as possible,
and that comes in many forms.
Whether it's showin' up and carrying water around
to people that need it, to being spotters.
There's the hard jobs.
There's the easy jobs.
Everybody has a role and a function where they can fit in.
We have a really good active association.
We have regular meetings on an annual basis,
sometimes semi-annual.
And one of the greatest tools to help us function
is setting us up with the group meet text.
And we can have mass communication instantly to 70 members,
and everybody knows where everybody is, and who's available.
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- If a person wishes to join a prescribed burn association
they can contact the state organization
and they would give them the name and number
of a local burn association that is close to them.
The state organization has a website that has all
of that local burn association information on the website.
They would then contact probably the president
of the local burn association.
And they would tell them when the next meeting was
or send them an application.
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- [John] We've got small backpack sprayers, blowers,
an assortment of hand tools such as shovels, rakes,
spades, usually have about six drip torches, gloves,
radio vests, safety glasses.
Some other stuff that we have on hand is all the manuals
for all the equipment that we have that's mechanical,
and we have spare parts and stuff
that we use those things for.
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- We have 85 local conservation districts
across the state of Oklahoma
and they're the only local unit of government
that's charged with the conservation of natural resources.
So about eight years ago, we started working
with the Prescribed Burn Associations
to get equipment out to the local burn association
so that we could get more fire on the ground.
- [Ken] We have private lands biologists across the state.
They're encouraged to meet, to present at,
to work with their Prescribed Burn Associations.
We're a very strong proponent of fire.
We use fire extensively on our wildlife management areas
and we also realize the benefits
and the need for fire on private lands in Oklahoma.
So anything that we can do to encourage that
and that includes workin'
with those prescribed burn associations.
We like to do that.
- The Noble Research Institute is a private organization.
Noble works with burn associations
just through support, institutional support
but also with our staff, we have several staff,
pasture and range consultants,
wildlife and range consultants,
and others on staff that work with land owners
and these Prescribed Burn Associations.
We show up to do educational events.
We work with the individuals within those associations
on their properties to help them develop
prescribed burn plans, to implement prescribed burn
on the property and general education too
on the use of prescribed fire.
In addition to that, the Noble Foundation hosts
prescribed burn workshops,
a couple of those during each year in conjunction
with the Oklahoma Prescribed Burn Association,
Oklahoma State University,
Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation,
Nature Conservancy, NRCS, and other agencies
throughout the state as needed
in different areas of the state to be able to promote
and educate landowners about the use of prescribed fire.
- The local Prescribed Burn Associations
and the Partners for Fish and Wildlife program work together
as neighbors helpin' neighbors,
but also some of those neighbors are cooperators
with the Partners for Fish and Wildlife program,
so we're able to actually get prescribed fire
on our properties, our cooperators.
- Oklahoma NRCS works with the Prescribed Burn Associations
in a coupla different ways.
At the state level, we help to provide funding
to work with landowners on prescribed burn plans
and implementation of those plans,
and also work to help implement field days
and other outreach organizations.
Oklahoma NRCS provides funding out of our local budget
working with the Prescribed Burn Association
on their regional coordinators
that work directly with land owners
and the local Prescribed Burn Associations.
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- It does a number of things.
It gets rid of all the wildfire potential,
cleans out all that undergrowth
that you don't want in an area,
gets rid of all your cedar trees.
It's good for wildlife
and it's good for human habitat as well.
- It builds a community of neighbors, helping neighbors,
the comradery, and just knowing that somebody is out there
that has your back.
- One thing I do stress when I'm talkin' to people
that may have a negative attitude is
this may save your pasture or even more importantly
your home or barns.
Because everywhere we burn
gives a fire department the upper hand,
or at least a better chance to divert that fire.
And I said, "If nothin' else,
if you don't want your place burned,
let your neighbors do it.
And because it may save you, then you can.
I think when you see the benefits of it,
you're probably gonna wanna be a member.
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- I think that Prescribed Burn Associations
play a very big part of the future of prescribed burning.
From a ecological landscape perspective,
there's no way that resource management professionals
can implement enough burns on the landscape
to actually achieve what we need to achieve
across the landscape.
The only way that we can do that is
by empowering private land owners
to conduct prescribed burns on their own
and teaching them why they need to do it,
how they need to do it, and getting that accomplished.
- I think that without the Prescribed Burn Associations
prescribed fire it's just strictly hit and miss.
I mean, it's the landowners that's big enough
to have the resources to be able to burn.
It enables some of the smaller land owners that otherwise
wouldn't be able to burn or wouldn't be able to burn
near as often as they need to.
It enables them to burn.
It's very beneficial in gettin' more fire on the landscape
that's historically fire driven.
- [John] Prescribed Burn Associations are critical
for the future of fire, and you can tell
by the number of burn plans and burns that are occurring
year after year that keeps increasing with more and more
Prescribed Burn Associations coming in.
So the knowledge of the associations is being spread,
which results in more fires.
- Having an organized setting like that,
an organized group that you know is gonna come out
and do the job safely and effectively
with a prescribed burn plan, the proper personnel,
the proper equipment is all very important to pull it off.
And I think that's gonna be essential
for all people in the future.
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