Illinois PF & QF secure grant to implement prescribed burns

By Gilbert Randolph, QF Regional Communications Specialist

Illinois Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever recently secured a grant through the Illinois Forestry Development Council. Through the new agreement, PF & QF will work with local landowners, prescribed burn associations and other partners to improve upland habitat in central Illinois, as well as generate interest in starting more prescribed burn associations.

The grant provides funding to host in-person and online burn workshops and landowner visits — assisting landowners in writing burn plans as well as landowner led live fire training. On March 14 Quail Forever partnered with the Chandlerville Fire Department to host a burn day, where participants had the opportunity to get hands-on experience with fire safety, how to use burn equipment and more.

Central Illinois is home to a unique upland habitat type, hill prairies with loess soil. While people may be most familiar with the Loess Hills in the Missouri River valley of Missouri and Iowa, these upland habitats also exist in Illinois. Often on south facing slopes, they need fire to continue to exist and not be lost to woody encroachment.

"The wildlife responses we are seeing in restored grasslands, savannas, and hill prairies is tied directly to prescribed fire," said Emily Hodapp, a private lands biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service working in the area. "Returning good fire to the land is a critical component of restoring these fire-adapted landscapes."

Woody encroachment and invasive species continue to be one of the most pressing challenges upland habitat faces nationwide. Illinois has less than one percent of its original prairies intact, so maintaining these hill prairies is an important step in making sure upland birds continue to have a future on the landscape.

Work being done through the grant also connects to broader private lands conservation work being done by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. With ninety-seven percent of land in Illinois being privately owned, the future of upland habitat in the state depends on the passion and hard work of local landowners. Connecting them with the resources, gear and training they need to implement their own burn strategies means they not only can keep fire on their own land, but can also help their neighbors do the same.

"We're eager to get more fire on the ground in Illinois," said Shel Wilks, Quail Forever's southern Illinois prescribed fire coordinator. "The landowners we work with are passionate about conservation. This grant will help them get the resources they need and form their own local fire communities and prescribed burn associations."

While working with individual landowners can make a meaningful impact, helping them organize local prescribed burn associations has proven to be an effective, long-term strategy for creating a culture of fire in a community. When neighbors are helping neighbors, they make prescribed fire safer, easier and more economical.

To learn more about prescribed fire in Illinois or to get connected with resources, contact Shel Wilks at swilks@quailforever.org.