Skip to main content

Extension

Open Main MenuClose Main Menu

Fire: Myths and Facts

Dispelling Common Myths About Fire

Myth: A controlled burn is the same as a prescribed burn. 

 

Fact: A prescribed burn is a fire set under specific weather conditions, with adequate personnel, and suppression equipment to achieve specific land management objectives. A controlled burn is a fire set without specified weather conditions or vegetation management objectives. Examples of controlled burns are burning trash, brush piles, or leaving a fire unattended.

 

Myth: Fire destroys the land. Local headlines read “The wildfire ravaged over 200,000 acres of land.” 

 

Fact: Land is not destroyed by fire and in fact the opposite occurs. Fire, a naturally occurring ecological driver, enriches soils by adding nutrients and makes the plant community healthy again. Native plants including those in prairies, shrublands, and forests and associated wildlife are adapted to periodic fires that were historically set by Native Americans and to a lesser extent by lightening.

 

Myth: All fires create smoke that cause problems on roadways and negatively impact human health.

 

Fact: Careful planning and using the smoke management model forecast available on the Oklahoma Mesonet can manage smoke from a prescribed fire.  Areas where fire has been suppressed will eventually be burned by wildfire and the smoke from this situation is much more troublesome than a prescribed fire.

 

Myth: Fires that occur during the growing season kills plants.

 

Fact: Research from many parts of the country has shown that native plants and ecosystems are adapted to fire at any time of the year and are not killed.

 

Myth: When people set fires they always escape.

 

Fact: A few improperly set fires are the only ones that make the news.  Experience with prescribed burning in Oklahoma over the past 20 years clearly demonstrates that hundreds of thousands of acres are burned each year without any problem.

 

Get the Facts about Prescribed Fire

Fact: In Oklahoma there are over 2.5 million acres burned by prescription annually. Compare this to the 500,000 acres burned by wildfires in 2005 and 2006.

 

Fact: Prescribed fire does not just benefit people in rural settings; it has many benefits to the urban population as well. These benefits include increased water quality and quantity, reduction of wildland fuels and resulting wildfire risk, and reduction of plants such as eastern redcedar that cause allergies.

 

Fact: Prescribed fire can protect lives and personal property by reducing wildland fuels in overgrown native forests and eliminating volatile fuels such as eastern redcedar. Removing these fuels makes fighting wildfires less dangerous to firefighters.

 

Fact: In 2004 trash and brush pile burning (i.e. controlled burns), along with arson caused 59 percent of all the reported fires in the southern United States on state and private forestlands.

 

Fact: Prescribed fire is the most economical method to manage and restore Oklahoma’s prairies, shrublands, and forests.

 

Fact: Controlled burns often escape, endanger lives and personal property, create nuisance smoke, and costs taxpayers money.

 

Fact: Prescribed fire is the application of a natural and environmentally friendly land management practice.

 

Fact: Fire does not destroy the land; Oklahoma’s native plant communities are adapted to fire and require frequent fires to regenerate, control plant diseases, and reduce pest problems.

 

Fact: Because of the lack of prescribed fire, many important wildlife species are declining, such as Lesser Prairie-Chicken, Black-capped Vireo, Bobwhite Quail, and most of the prairie songbirds.

 

Fact:  Oklahoma’s vital livestock and forest products industry and the health of Oklahoma’s ecosystems are compromised by fire suppression as the result of the infamous “Smokey Bear” advertising campaign.

 

John R. Weir

Research Associate

 

Terrence G. Bidwell

Professor and Extension Specialist

 

Karen R. Hickman

Associate Professor

 

Samuel D. Fuhlendorf

Professor

Natural Resource Ecology and Management

Oklahoma State University

405.744.5438

Was this information helpful?
YESNO
Fact Sheet
2025 Oklahoma Timber Price Report

Find information on the 2025 Oklahoma Timber Price Report by Ryan DeSantis including, 2024-2025 Price Trends and the 2025 Market Outlook.

ForestryProcessing Wood
Fact Sheet
Federal Programs for Beef Cattle Producer Wildfire Recovery

By Amy Hagerman. Learn more about the federal programs available for beef cattle producers after a wildfire is out and initial injuries are treated. Producers can begin the process of recovery with the financial help of disaster programs.

Beef CattleLivestockWeather & Disaster PreparednessWildfires
Fact Sheet
Introduction to Forest Carbon

By Ryan DeSantis, Sonika Poudel and Omar Joshi. Given the length of time required for tree growth, carbon-based forest management is a long-term system in which carbon credits are generated through forest management practices and then sold to industries, providing landowners with additional revenue. This can be beneficial for marginal land with poor agricultural production capabilities. In carbon-based forest management, tree growth, or carbon, is generated where it would not have otherwise been. Fast growing tree species are most appropriate for marginal land and can help landowners earn carbon credits.

Forestry
Fact Sheet
Eastern Redcedar and Climate Change in Oklahoma’s Cross Timbers Forests

By Ryan D. DeSantis, Sydny R. Hager, John R. Weir and R. James Ansley. Learn about how the Cross Timbers ecoregion includes much of Oklahoma's oak forests. These forests have changed considerably over the last century. Among other changes, more eastern redcedar means changes to forest composition, and changes to fire behavior. Managing eastern redcedar is important for land owners and land managers, but efficiency substantially increases when eastern redcedar is removed when small. Drought and eastern redcedar tree size have implications for fire behavior. Active management of multiple-use forested properties with eastern redcedar is important.

Forest Ecology, Management & CareForestryRegeneration
VIEW ALL
MENUCLOSE