HEROD, Ill. (WSIL) -- You may have seen smoke coming from the Shawnee National Forest, but there's no reason to be alarmed. It's the beginning of prescribed burning season and it has many benefits for the forest.
"Most of the woodlands and forests around us evolved with some level of recurrent fire over the last several hundred to thousands of years," explains Scott Crist, Fire Management Officer for the Shawnee National Forest.
Crist says fires are a key player to a healthy forest. "We're doing a burn out here in Pope County to achieve numerous benefits but one of those is biodiversity. Another one is really regeneration of the oak forest."
Crist says removing debris and dead vegetation will allow more sunlight to hit the forest floor helping the oak trees flourish. "Oaks tend to be more fire tolerant so by bringing fire into the forest we can favor oaks over some other species. There's numerous ecological benefits for doing that. Acorns are a high quality long lasting food resource for many wildlife species."
A prescibed burn takes a lot of planning, coordination and weather cooperation.
"We really couldn't have asked for better conditions so low 60's, humidity around 30 percent as a minimum and then some wind but not too much. If we don't have any wind the smoke won't disperse off site," adds Crist.
Crist says one of their biggest concerns during a prescribed burn is the smoke. "We have enough wind to dispearse the wind off site but enough warmth and lift in the atmosphere to get the smoke off the surface. Even though this is probably the biggest burn we will do this year we're expecting no impacts from the smoke."
Don't be surprised to see more smoke on the horizon. Another prescribed burn is planned Tuesday, about 6 miles east of Harrisburg.
For more information on how fire helps the forest click and . You can also find a list of planned and map of planned burns for the Shawnee National Forest .
