STILLWATER — For landowners who want to improve wildlife habitat, prescribed burning can be well worth the effort. Oklahoma State University specialists who promote and educate on both wildlife and fire are ready to help Oklahoma's landowners.

"We have a lot of resources that can help," said Dwayne Elmore, OSU Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management assistant professor and state Extension wildlife specialist.

NREM faculty and specialists have been key supporters in the recent establishment of the Oklahoma Prescribed Fire Council and promote that group's mission of implementing prescribed fire in Oklahoma as a natural resource management tool. OPFC is determined to facilitate a dramatic increase in the use of prescribed burns by private rural landowners throughout the state.

The council's mission states it is critical for managed or prescribed fire to be implemented back onto the Oklahoma landscape to create the habitat necessary for survival or restoration of the full suite of plants and animals that represent our state's wildlife diversity heritage. Man's suppression of fire for generations has dramatically altered habitats for many of the state's native plants and animals, as grasslands have given way to woody vegetation and woodlands have become closed canopy forests.

OPFC promotes rejuvenating the natural landscape to significantly improve hunting in the state and potentially add to landowner revenue, as well as improve the safety for people, livestock and property by reducing the natural fuel buildup that can result in catastrophic wildfire.

Elmore said that all of Oklahoma is fire adaptive and historically has been burned.

"Fire will not harm the native grasses and plants in Oklahoma," he said.

Even for landowners who are more interested in brush control or in controlling Eastern red cedar than in wildlife habitat, a planned prescribed fire would have real benefits.

"Probably the number one ecological threat we have in Oklahoma, not just for wildlife but for forage for livestock, is Eastern red cedar," Elmore said.

Damage to property from the encroachment of invasive species is well documented. The heavy infestation of the plant throughout the state has resulted from a lack of natural control by fire over a period of time, he said.

Historically, Elmore said, Oklahoma's landscape burned every two to five years, keeping the species from gaining the ground it now has in the state today.

"At minimum, if you are a landowner you should be thinking about prescribed fire once every seven to 10 years. That is a minimum. You can burn more often," Elmore said.

"If you have cedars that are above 6-10 feet high, fire won't get them all. You want to be burning before then." Elmore suggests using prescribed fire to control cedar before it is waist high in your fields.

Prescribed fire costs can be $4 to $10 an acre where mechanical removal is much more expensive.

Whether you are a livestock producer or you are supporting wildlife habitat, prescribed fire will change plant composition and open up the structure adding diversity in habitat.

Elmore said he is often asked when is the best time to burn. "Whenever the conditions are safe," is always his answer. Landowners who are interested should locate the closest burn association and plan to watch a prescribed burn. They may want to work to organize an association in their own area if one is not available, he said.

Elmore said that most of the people he talks with around the state are receptive to using fire, but lack the knowledge and experience to do so on their own.

"It really makes a lot of sense for landowners to work together," he said. Combining available equipment and labor allows landowners to pursue the use of prescribed fire on their property. The practice has already supported the development of a dozen burn associations across the state set up to get fire on the landscape.

"I would tell landowners to not be constrained to burn in late winter or early spring. OSU's plots burn every month of the year," Elmore said. Weather is a deciding factor in prescribed burning and Elmore said information is readily available in Oklahoma to help make safe prescribed burning decisions.

"The really important thing for wildlife is the interval between burns," Elmore said. "And the size of the burn. Bobwhite quail benefit from small patches at intervals."

Annual native plants are important to wildlife and are promoted by the open structure created by prescribed burning, he said. Many of Oklahoma's native prairie plants do better after fire.

Oklahoma's Prescribed Fire Council has a new Web site with information about prescribed fire, fire weather information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Norman and Oklahoma's Burn Associations.

The site has a link for OSU Fact Sheets. Their Web site is www.oklahomaprescribedfirecouncil.okstate.edu. OSU's NREM department Web site also has information and fact sheets available on prescribed fire, wildlife and other topics of interest to download at http://nrem.okstate.edu/Extension/pubs.html#range.