Eveleth area wildlife manager Tim Wallace and his crew have been setting good fires recently. During May, the flames of their carefully set and controlled fires burned back willow, bog birch, tamarack, spruce, and other woody plants encroaching on brushlands. Joined by volunteer firefighters and crews from nearby DNR offices, Wallace s crew burned five sites covering 1,200 acres. It s like a military operation, says Wallace of the Bombadier tractors, plows, trucks, and other equipment marshaled by up to 100 people on the larger burns. Sharp-tailed grouse, which require open areas free of trees to mate and raise their young, are the prime beneficiaries of burns.
Many songbirds also thrive in the rejuvenated brushlands.
To ensure the fire stays under control but burns hot enough to kill trees and brush, the burns are conducted only under ideal conditions of low wind and low humidity. A temperature of 50 to 70 degrees is required for the smoke to rise from the burn and disappear into the atmosphere. Lake City Minnesota s trout opener drew fewer anglers than last year, due mainly to murky water that made fishing with lures and flies difficult. Pressure was down a bit from 1998, says Tim Schlagenhaft, area fisheries supervisor at Lake City. We had quite a bit of rain the week before the opener, so some of the streams were pretty muddy.