notes. “You can wear out a lot of people just trying to get the fi re completed safely.” That, he says, is where the pre-cleared 500-foot strips pay off. He says a lot of their perennial grasses still have
not recovered from the wildfi re that came through on April 15, 2011. It was followed by 100 consecutive days of 100-plus degree temperatures with no rainfall. “That ground was scorched bare and literally baked,
and soil temperatures a foot below the surface reached 140+ degrees,” he says. “Some said that the soil was ‘cooked’ to the point that it would be sterile, but it is recovering very well in some places — with the help of tender loving care from our grazing program.” Price says they prefer to work with fi re under their
terms — prescribed burns — but benefi ts can even be found from a wildfi re. In 2011, they got some very good control of cedar and prickly pear, and even had the “opportunity” to rebuild some fences in places to enhance their grazing program. “All of the major resource areas in Texas evolved
under some sort of a fi re regime,” says Goodwin. “We’ve taken that fi re dependence out of a lot of our plant communities, and they have evolved into a fi re- independent state, such as cedar breaks. Any time we
can get some sort of fi re back on the landscape, it’s going to be one of our most economical practices to slow down woody brush encroachment. From a stand- point of ecological signifi cance, it also can be one of the most effective, depending on the target species. Most of the time, it provides positive responses at the end of the day.” “All you’re doing with fi re on brush is suppres-
sion,” Brite points out. “It’s not elimination. It’s just management and, in a sense, it is the same way with decadent growth on grass. Every few years, depending on how you’ve managed that range, it can need a fi re to run across it to get optimum performance out of it.” Price offers an anecdote on the healing properties of
fi re. During his fi rst burn, he says, “There was a mo- tor grader that we used to blade the fi re guards. It was parked in the area we were going to burn. We couldn’t get it started, so we just took the drip torches and burned around the outside of that motor grader. The buffalo grass where the motor grader was sitting did not burn. For 2 years after the burn, the buffalo grass was taller and more vigorous where we burned than where that motor grader was sitting. That was very telling as to what fi re can do.”
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July 2016 The Cattleman 53
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