Controlled burn/ prescribed fire in the upper Midwest

[Prizl tha Chizl]

Hi there. I'm new here and have a small mixed hardwoods stand in sw Wisconsin. We began doing some burning in our woods a few years ago after a friend and neighbor with fire experience encouraged us to use it to help control the honeysuckle, rose, and autumn olive. 

I read through a couple of great threads here on burning in the south, but my search didn't turn up anything in my neck of the woods. Anybody in here use fire up north? My first small burns seem promising, but most of the folks that are burning up here seem to be focused on prairie and Savannah work, and so aren't using fire as a tool FOR forests.

[customsawyer]

I'm not up north but in using it as a tool it helps to know how much heat your desired woods can take and how much it takes to control the undesirables. It's not as simple as just going out and light the woods on fire like in a site prep burn. It is a good and cheap tool when used correctly. Can get expensive if not used correctly.

[Riwaka]

The usual rule is not to light anything you cannot put out completely by yourself.

Wisconsin DNR prescribed burns. There might be a formal rulebook etc about your local prescribed burn procedures etc 

For the Record: How prescribed burns bring new life to Wisconsin's prairies - YouTube

[aigheadish]

Here's a link to a show that Old Greenhorn turned me on to. It's called From The Forest, out of the Catskills, NY, so not really local, but they have several shows where the topic involves prescribed/controlled burns. 

I'm not sure if it'll help but it's a fun show to listen to and learn from either way. They have a podcast feed if you want to listen that way.

[WDH]

At least down South, prescribed burning hardwoods is a no-no.  Hardwoods here are not fire adapted like the native pines, so natural fires and those deliberately set by the Native Americans served to keep the pine woods more open and savannah like with native grassses growing in the more open woodlands, and the hardwood prospered in the bottomlands, creek drains, streamside zones, etc that were too wet to carry the fire.

Unlike the pines with thick, fire adapted bark, burning hardwoods down here damages the bark and leads to wounds that allow rot fungi to enter the tree and promote rot.  In the more prairie areas, fire kept the hardwoods at bay so that the native bluestem grasses could flourish. 

In Wisconsin, I certainly would do some research and talk to Extension Foresters before putting fire into your hardwood stands. 

[nativewolf]

Fortunately as the USA was getting explored botany was just taking off and the early botanist had a chance to explore extensively.  

"Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida" by William Bartram  was an international best seller when published before 1800.   Forest history is so poorly understand and this is a great read.    When they traveled they rode horses just incredible distances, all through fire ecosystems.  Open and easy movement.  

When you read it you can find extensive discussions on the impact of fire on upland ecosystems, pine Savannah and pockets of oaks.  In the piedmont there were actually extensive oak forest savannah ecosystems.  When burning oaks in the SE we may get some residual damage but that can be minimized, the damage is caused by extensive buildup of organic material on the base of hardwoods.  One trick at a local level is to use backpack air blowers to move organic material away from the base of the oaks you wish to preserve.  As long as you only target save trees and are willing to see a few die this is not too burdensome.  Setting up the initial burn is work though.  We usually are doing 1-2 herbicide treatments prior to the burning and then even more work on save trees and then finally a burn designed to setup the forest for regular maint by prescribed burning.  

In the great plains the fire ecosystems were almost exclusively hardwood, burr oak has a think bark like chestnut oak and withstand fire quite well.  The key on a fire ecosystem is usually periodic burning.  If you can keep the vegetation down than you can keep the fires cool enough.  Once you have a system setup, burn, burn and keep burning.  Every 1-3 years depending on fuel loads.  

The local Nature Conservancy chapter will, I am sure, have extensive information on prescribed burning and they may even have a program for landowners.  I'd suggest reaching out to them and good luck, be safe, and enjoy.

[tacks Y]

The national forest here does some here, just did some fields. But they do burn in the forest also, they burned a area with mountain laurel in a red oak forest. They also contract spraying out, picture skidders with a large fans and tanks.

[moodnacreek]

Several acres of oak wood where I hunt had a ground fire about 5 years ago. Those trees are mostly dead now.

[DMcCoy]

Not in the upper midwest.  With my small experiments so far I have learned quite a lot.   My woodland landscape will change with the introduction of fire.  Some brush that is 1-3' tall didn't burn but did die because of my fire.  It became really obvious to me that if I use fire regularly then I will end up with a very different plant mix than currently exists. I plan to continue as I wish to have defensive space around my home.  We have quite a lot of invasive Johnson grass.  This grass when dry is very flammable. I burn during winter, careful to keep it containable and extinguishable which is a learning process....

[Prizl tha Chizl]

Thanks for the replies everyone.
I'm definitely focused on keeping the fires small, Riwaka, I'm not interested in burning down what little we've got! I'll definitely spend some time with that radio show this spring, aigheadish, that looks interesting! 
native wolf, one of the things that's a big draw for me is reading accounts of early explorers being able to ride "at full gallop" through the woods. Now, I understand that there are a lot of things happening differently in our woods than back then, but these same articles or books also claim that most of the eastern hardwoods were a fire dependent ecosystem, evolving with regular lightning and human caused fires. I've only been in a handful of woods that I can imagine riding off trail at all, where are you burning, and are they shaping up like you expected?
A little more background for my specific case. We've got just 19 steep acres, naturally divided by two wet draws. This was oak Savannah 150 years ago, then pastured up until the 60s. About 1/4 the area is white pine and aging Scots pine transitioning to  hickory/hackberry/oak, 1/4 hickory/oak, 1/4 walnut, 1/4 black locust, and rose and honeysuckle thick through about 1/2 of it. Everything but the pines were naturally seeded. My goals with fire are to knock back the invasive understory and support a native ground cover. 
Where we are small landowners can only burn after 6pm when the humidity is up and fire risk is low. This, and the aspect of the site keep my fires small, the biggest challenge I've had is getting the burn going hot enough to actually do the work I want it to. I spent a lot of time in prep like native wolf describes, minus the herbicide. The place where I've had the most success is about an acre that I've burned three years in a row and broadcast native understory seeds. The honeysuckle is virtually gone, and I can actually see what I'm hunting! The least successful has been in the walnut, as those leaves don't seem to want to burn. I've played with timing a little bit, and it seems like burning later in the spring puts the most hurt on the invasive, but can be hard to get a good burn as things green up.
I've only screwed up one nice white pine that I can tell, (should've cleared the fallen limbs at the base,) but I am still a little nervous that I might be doing damage that I'll only see later on like a couple of you suggest. 
I'm happy for advice, but also happy to just hear about peoples experiences, what you all are doing, and learn what I can. 
Happy Springtime everybody!

[aigheadish]

Uhg, the honeysuckle! My house is rural neighborhood, where I have one semi-close neighbor but can see other neighbors all over. I have a narrow lot but 6 acres, between 2-6ish is about normal size of the hood. My house is mostly invisible from the road due to growth all around, which I love, but the more I look at it the more it's all honeysuckle, which I'd love to get rid of but at the price of privacy? I'd much rather some of the neat trees and undergrowth we can have here, but the honeysuckle does provide lots of cover. I also have a lot of standing dead which makes me think that fire control wouldn't be a great idea...

[Prizl tha Chizl]

Have you thought about leaving a "honeysuckle beauty strip" around your perimeter? You could get some of the privacy and still enjoy easier access to the majority of the woods you've got.
 Another idea would be to try and clear out all the honeysuckle and plant native understory shrubs along the perimeter. Here that might be hazelnut, gooseberry, arrow wood, dogwood. 
We have some standing dead in most of what I've been burning, and it hasn't caused any problems, (though some of it has burned like a candle through the night.) But I have kept the fire well away from a clump of spruce die-off, as I can already see the bonfire that would make.
What are your overstory trees? That might say more as to whether fire is a good idea in your woods...

[aigheadish]

A strip isn't a bad idea. I'm not sure what the overstory is, if it's not dead. All I know for sure is a bunch of small leafed stuff. I need to investigate. Thanks for the suggestions!

[mudfarmer]

Best honeysuckle results for us are pulling out whole thing roots and all with tractor or utv. Loop a strap or choker chain around stump base so it tightens when you pull, easiest when the ground is moist or wet.

Lots of cool info in this thread, burning is not common near me but do remember seeing some controlled burning of fields in Northern VT. Thanks everyone

[brianJ]

A 75XT case skid steer is my tool of choice for mechanical honeysuckle removal.   I must have 10k hours of use in case skid steers and just with a bucket I can pop them out with the roots and disturb just an inch of dirt.

[Prizl tha Chizl]

My hills are too steep for a skid steer, though if I had one I'd probably roll it over trying. We're blessed with sandy slopes, though, and I've yanked about two acres of small honeysuckle 20 minutes at a time as a part of my workout routine. (Way more fun than a gym, and better company too!) 

The tops are all rock and clay, though. Where it's gone well, cutting once and burning two years has done the trick, and feels great!
Where it hasn't, well, we'll say it looks about the same as when I started out. Disheartening.

[Prizl tha Chizl]

Went down a rabbit hole after native Wolf's post, and found that Lyon's original survey notes of Wisconsin, (1832-1866) are now digital here https://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/SurveyNotes/SurveyNotesHome.html

I think I'll make a separate post about this as is not totally about burning etc, but the notes for my immediate area vary from prairie to lightly wooded to wooded, with white oak and burr oak being by and large the majority species recorded. This the first written record I know of as to the makeup of the woods in this reportedly fire dependent system.