From Grassroots to National Alliance: The Emerging Trajectory for Landowner Prescribed Burn Associations

Abstract

• Due to woody plant encroachment and seeing the need for fire on their lands, private landowners throughout the southern Great Plains have started forming prescribed burn associations (PBA) to assist each other with conducting prescribed fires.
• Members of PBAswork together by pooling equipment and other resources, organizing training opportunities, and assisting with prescribed burns on each other’s properties, while teaching upcoming generations and inexperienced members the value of fire in grassland conservation and how to safely use it.
• There are over 50 PBAs working in the southern Great Plains. As the number of PBAs has grown so has the need for bringing these groups together. Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas have formed statewide PBAs to assist and promote the local PBAs.
• As PBAs have grown in number, there is now a clear opportunity to develop an organized network ofPBAs at the local, state, and national levels that can address cross-scale ecological and jurisdictional challenges limiting their effectiveness.

Keywords: cross-scale dynamics, fire risk, landowner cooperative, landowner survey, prescribed fire.