Litter buildups impede movement, promote cold and wet conditions, and reduce food availability for prairie chickens. Frequently, Rio Grande turkeys feed on fresh burns in the Rolling Plains of Texas. For example, clean burns are essential for goose management. They feed on roots and rhizomes of many sedges and grasses, as well as new green shoots. Burning makes these foods more available to geese .
Wetlands are just a developmental stage in the progression toward climax.
Ponds and shallow lakes are filled with large accumulations of organic matter and rank, impenetrable growth by climax species such as common reed, bulrush, and cattail, are unsuitable for waterfowl and most other marsh species. In addition to new food plants becoming available after burns, seeds from dominant plants are more accessible. After fires occur in marsh communities in the Southeast, they are ideal habitats for muskrats . In the Nebraska Sandhills , spring fires create more open water and more edge for nesting, reduce the density of common reed as much as 85 percent, which created more feeding and loafing areas, increase desirable foods, and ease travel for all waterfowl, especially young broods. Many desirable plants for waterfowl such as duckweed, pondweed, and wild rice become more abundant following fire because more open water is created.