This story was originally published by Reasons to be Cheerful
8 min read
Smoke hangs thick over southern Oklahoma’s Arbuckle Mountains as flames lick through prairie grass toward a stand of eastern red cedar trees. To many, the scene would look like a disaster in the making. But to father-son ranchers Chuck and Seth Coffey, the fire is a blessing — it’s the best tool for keeping their grasslands healthy and intact.
A growing number of Great Plains landowners, like the Coffeys, are choosing to light their grasslands on fire. Strategic, carefully controlled burns revitalize prairie plants, providing more food for their cattle. Plus, these prescribed burns provide much-needed insurance for managing risk from catastrophic wildfires.
“We burned close to 22,000 acres this year, if you add in all the neighbors,” says Seth Coffey. He’s a fire ecologist and the burn boss on his family’s ranch, the Double C Cattle Company, which spans roughly 30,000 contiguous acres in southern Oklahoma. “When wildfire does happen, we’ve already treated much of the landscape, so we’re dealing with it on our terms.”
The Coffeys and their neighbors burn their land in late winter. By the time strong spring winds arrive that can fan wildfires into conflagrations, no fuel is left to feed the flames.
“If you burn first, the wildfires can’t burn that ground,” says Tanner Swank, grassland biome program manager for Pheasants Forever and Working Lands for Wildlife. Swank helps coordinate prescribed burns across the Great Plains. On several occasions, Swank notes, the Coffeys’ burns have stopped wildfires in their tracks. Even more helpful, local fire departments can then use the already-burned areas on their ranch as a base for beating back the rest of the wildfire.
Prescribed fires are increasingly important in the Great Plains as record-breaking, hard-to-control wildfires continue to make headlines. In March 2025, Oklahoma experienced one of the worst wildfire outbreaks in its history — 30 different fires burned in 44 counties, destroying 300 homes and causing four fatalities. Further north in March 2026, the worst wildfire in Nebraska’s history scorched nearly a half million acres, contributing to the state’s record-breaking fire season.
One reason for these larger, hotter wildfires? The proliferation of woody brush on historically tree-free grasslands.
Past fire suppression efforts allowed trees like eastern red cedar to take over hundreds of thousands of acres of America’s grasslands. Regular burns, lit by Indigenous peoples or lightning, historically kept native trees and shrubs relegated to wet places, like streamsides, draws or springs. But without regular fire over the past two centuries, red cedar and other shrubs are quickly dominating fertile prairies.
Red cedar trees grow fast, reproduce exponentially and suck precious water from aquifers and streams. Plus, nothing grows beneath them, leaving less food for animals. Dense stands of red cedar also up the ante when seasonal wildfires roll through, as trees burn hotter than grasses.
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“Eastern red cedars are taking over so much land every day,” Seth says. “It’s increasing the wildland fire risk across the state, and decreasing the amount of forage for livestock and the amount of water available to cities.”
Seth’s father, Chuck, sees the spread of red cedar as an economic drain on ranchers’ income. “It’s your plants that support everything, including the animals,” Chuck says. “Grass comes first, cows second.”
Chuck has made it his lifelong mission to restore native bunchgrasses and wildflowers on his Oklahoma rangelands. “My primary goal is to see every cedar tree die before I go.”
When the Coffeys inherited a portion of their ranch in 2010, the tree canopy cover was 60 percent in many areas. They used prescribed fire, combined with cutting trees and spraying seedlings with herbicides. The hard work paid off — today, tree cover on that part of the ranch is just 17 percent.
“Give it another 10 years, and we won’t have a single cedar tree on the property,” Chuck notes proudly.
The Coffeys quickly learned that prescribed burns work best if they happen across fence lines — and that many hands make light work. They helped start the Arbuckle Rangeland Restoration Association so that ranchers can share resources and coordinate burns at a larger scale. Both Seth and his brother, Aaron, are officers.
Locally led burn associations are “a huge help” for landowners looking to cooperate to maintain productive grasslands, says Swank. He’s seen more and more burn groups pop up across the Great Plains.
“We burn as neighbors,” says Barb Cooksley, a fourth-generation rancher who runs cattle in the Nebraska Sandhills. “We’re all looking for a solution to the same problem.”
The Sandhills region is the most intact temperate grassland left on earth — but encroaching red cedar trees are threatening this unique ecosystem, as well as ranchers’ profitability. “Woody species are increasing year by year. We see more and more of it,” Cooksley says.
Prescribed fire is catching on as a management tool for Nebraska ranchers, though landowners in the Sandhills burn more sparingly than those who live in wetter parts of the Great Plains.
“It’s beach sand. If you bare that with a burn, it responds differently than a heavier soil. It can blow,” Cooksley says. “But we’ve learned that since the Sandhills developed under fire, it’s one of the tools we can use to promote the grass we do have.”
Grassland wildlife, such as birds or pronghorn, are adapted to live in wide-open prairies. These animals suffer as trees close in. “Sharp-tailed grouse and prairie chickens don’t like to nest where there’s trees,” Cooksley says. “Once you remove the woody species, then they’ll come back and nest.”
Fire departments are often “huge fans” of ranchers’ burns, says Seth Coffey. “Ag producers are typically burning problem areas that have a significant wildland fuel risk.”
Prescribed fires are designed to be predictable and controllable — the opposite of most wildfires. Each burn is carefully planned out, approved by the local fire department, staffed with plenty of trained volunteers and professionals, and executed only when conditions are deemed safe. Experienced burn bosses like Seth Coffey direct people and equipment so flames don’t spread beyond the approved boundaries.
“We see continued interest in the formation of prescribed burn associations, which is just exceptional. Ranchers see the point and they see the value of burning,” says Dean Krehbiel, assistant state conservationist for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Kansas. This agency provides financial assistance to local fire associations to support firefighting training or equipment.
Perhaps the best-known example of landowners regularly setting fire to their pastures is in the Flint Hills of Kansas. Here, in one of the last strongholds of tallgrass prairie in the world, ranchers have been burning for well over a century.
“Historical manuscripts that date back to the 1800s talk about how landowners wanted that landscape burned because they knew their cattle grew better,” Krehbiel says. Fresh new grass post-burn provides more nutrition for livestock.
Satellite technology is also helping ranchers make decisions about where to burn grasslands threatened by encroaching red cedar, Krehbiel says. He points to a free online mapping tool called the Rangeland Analysis Platform, which allows landowners to easily monitor changes in their forage production or see outcomes from prescribed burns.
In any given year, ranchers burn about 2.5 million acres in the Flint Hills alone.
“We light everything on fire,” says Daniel Mushrush, a rancher whose family has been in the Flint Hills for seven generations.
“We all understand that fire is absolutely a needed thing for the tallgrass prairie: the ranchers, the people living in town, law enforcement,” Mushrush says. “This is stuff you talk about at your local bar or when you gather after church. After somebody’s done a burn, we ask, ‘How did it go?’ It’s about as popular as ‘How did the home game go?’ It’s just part of the culture.”
The Flint Hills’ widespread acceptance of fire is still the exception rather than the rule. But prescribed fire’s fan base is growing quickly as more Great Plains landowners learn about the benefits of burning.
“Grasslands are going to burn — it can be on our terms or on Mother Nature’s terms,” Mushrush notes. “That’s really the key: we wait until we can work with the conditions, not against them.”
The post Why Great Plains Ranchers Are Setting Fire to Their Own Land appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
