It’s fire season: Here’s why and how state forest rangers conduct prescribed burns

The State Department of Environmental Conservation plans to conduct prescribed burns on certain DEC-managed lands in Suffolk County between now and early May.

Prescribed fire improves habitat for lands and wildlife and is regulated by law and regulation. They require technical expertise to ensure burns are safely conducted.

“Prescribed fires are an important tool to keep New York State lands thriving and reduce fire risk,” Acting DECCommissioner Lefton announced last week. 

“In addition to removing wood and timber litter that fuels wildfires and threatens public safety and structures, prescribed burning helps DEC achieve specific ecological goals, including eliminating invasive species and ensuring growth of fire-dependent ecosystems,” Lefton said.

Before any prescribed fire is conducted, a burn plan is developed that outlines land management objectives, as well as parameters that must be satisfied before any prescribed fire can take place, the DEC said. 

Careful consideration is given to environmental factors such as current and expected weather conditions and smoke management considerations in close coordination with the National Weather Service. In addition, burn plans are executed by nationally qualified burn bosses.

Prescribed burns are exempt from the annual residential brush burning ban in effect from March 16 to May 14. 

Prescribed fires protect native species, reduce invasive species, and protect people from wildfires that could burn out of control.

“Before our prescribed fire, if you had a wildfire you might be looking at like 10-foot flame lengths. That’s pretty hard to control,” DEC Burn Boss and Forest Ranger Bryan Gallagher explains in a video the agency produced about prescribed fires. “But after we do prescribed fire, that worst-case, 10-foot flame length in a particular fuel gets reduced by 60 to 70%,” he said.

“It’s a planned event. We can get all the resources that we need for a particular day and do it safely. We can choose the weather,” Gallagher said. “Typically, we have three or four engines on site with a crew of anywhere from 10 to sometimes as many as 25 rangers.”

In 2024, DEC and partner agencies burned hundreds of acres of grassland habitat and dozens of acres of forested lands. These treatments included prescribed fires on two of DEC’s largest Long Island properties, the Otis Pike Pine Barrens State Forest and Rocky Point Pine Barrens State Forest, as well as other DEC-managed properties.

DEC-managed lands in DEC Region 1 (Long Island) also include Ridge Pine Barrens State Forest, David A. Sarnoff Pine Barrens State Forest and Dwarf Pine Plains Pine Barrens State Forest.

For more information about wildfires in New York State, visit the DEC’s website. A daily assessment of wildfire risk throughout the state is depicted on the DEC’s fire danger map, published here.