By By KATHIE HEMPEL / Niles Daily Star
NILES – Each year for a brief moment in time the sky over Fernwood Botanical Garden and Nature Preserve turns a brilliant orange and yellow.
The blazing sky is not the result of some celestial morning event. The occurrence is the result of the yearly Prairie Burn.
This year, the burn is scheduled for Saturday, weather depending.
"We have been doing the burn for as long as I can remember and I've been with the Buchanan Township Fire Department for 20 years," Tim Jesswein said.
Each year approximately half of the five-acre prairie is burned off alternately. The purpose of the exercise is to burn off old plant dead plant material.
Indirectly, the yearly event will increase the nutrients to the soil and the blackened area tends to stimulate a head start for seedlings.
"This year's burn is restricted to the eastern half of the prairie. In some cases the burn allows native plants to survive. Another purpose is that it keeps the area from becoming a forest or overgrown, preserving the prairie," said Heidi Gray, an ecologist with Fernwood .
Firefighters from Niles Township, Buchanan Township, Bertrand Township and Oronoko Township are ready to take part in this year's prairie burn scheduled for this Saturday at 8 a.m. Eau Claire Township was also invited.
"The biggest thing we learn as firefighters is the exercise is living proof of the wide variety of ways that fires can behave. Depending on weather conditions even in controlled circumstances it is never entirely predictable. We can take nothing for granted," said Jesswein.
Firefighters meet to discuss safety before hand, Jesswein said the newer members of the departments look forward to the burn.
"It is helpful in giving them hands on experience of the fire conditions that can exist during a grass fire. The entire burn can take as few as 10 minutes," he said.
While visitors are welcome, Gray says few normally attend the early morning spectacle. Those who do attend are kept to an appropriate distance.
Should the weather hamper this week's date, another will be set. However, Jesswein says the forecast is for dry weather on Thursday and Friday, so he expects the burn will happen.