One of the advantages of doing field work on the prairie was that I had the opportunity to take pictures of the vegetation recovering from fire at regular intervals. In July of 1997 we did a controlled burn of a large section of prairie. Follow the recovery in these pictures of the same area.

In this picture we see a head fire moving across a large area of palmetto and wiregrass. The “devastation” looks complete doesn’t it? It seems to be a moonscape of ashes. But remember, over half of each plant is below ground, protected from the fire. 

What could have survived that?

In close view it seems to be destroyed. But the re-growth has already started.

This is a close up view of a small clump of wiregrass and palmetto just three days after the fire!

This is just one week after the fire!

Now, just two weeks after the fire the area is nearly green again.

This is a close view of the same area, 2 weeks after the fire. Obviously nothing has been “destroyed” at all.

In this view, three weeks after the fire, the area is almost back to normal. Note the doe and fawn in the middle of the picture. This fresh growth is high in protein and browsers like deer just love it.