Post #12 Fire Maintains The Balance

Post #12, Fire Maintains The Balance, marks the twelfth stop along the Rankin Ridge Nature Trail.

NPS Photo / Anania Tekurio

Fire plays many roles in the ecological scheme of things and has been a major force on our planet for hundreds of millions of years. Fire opens the canopy of the forest allowing a healthy sub-canopy to thrive. The sub-canopy provides food and habitat for forest birds, mammals, and insects. Fire creates and maintains open areas needed by animals large and small.

While Native Americans have long understood the role of fire in the environment, land management agencies have only recently recognized the importance of fire in maintaining healthy ecosystems. More than 100 years of fire suppression have resulted in a heavy build-up of dead vegetation and dense stands of trees. Because of these conditions, today’s wildfires tend to be larger, burn hotter, and spread faster. This makes them more severe, more dangerous, and more costly in human, economic, and ecological terms.

Today in Wind Cave National Park, wildfires are still suppressed. The park uses a prescribed fire program to simulate the natural fires needed to maintain a healthy habitat and reduce the expansion of the ponderosa pine forest.