Saving Savannahs - Lance McMillan

Prescribed burns at High Park in Toronto. These intentionally set fires, which typically occur in more rural areas and have been used by the city for over two decades and by Indigenous people for much longer, help promote the diversity of flora and fauna found in the landscape. The goal of the burns at high park were to help protect black oak savannahs and woodlands by reducing weedy plants and other species that compete with the prairie vegetation. The high amount of green-up that can be found late in the season, coupled with reduced winds, present a burn with a significant amount of smoke.

A number of conditions have to be met before a date is finalized, with a burn plan created using an assessment from a site visit months earlier as well as learnings from previous burns. A list of forecasted indices ranges and prescribed weather is created in order to have a successful and safe burn, as will as the fuel moisture of the grasses being calculated to help predict the behaviour of the fire, with the weather for High Park having been tracked for many days prior.