Rancher Watching a Prairie Fire
by Catherine Sherman
Title
Rancher Watching a Prairie Fire
Artist
Catherine Sherman
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
"Rancher Watching a Prairie Fire" by Catherine Sherman.
A rancher on horseback watches a controlled prairie burn in the Flint Hills of Kansas.
The tallgrass prairie survives in areas unsuited to plowing, such as this section of the rocky hill country of the Flint Hills, which run north to south through east-central Kansas. Once vast, tallgrass prairie has shrunk to only one to four percent of its former size in North America.
Ranchers replicate natural fires when they burn the prairie every few years to destroy tree seedlings and alien plant species, which preserves the prairie as a grassland. The tallgrass prairie biome depends on prairie fires, a form of wildfire, for its survival and renewal. Such fires may either be set by humans (for example, Native Americans used fires to drive bison and improve hunting, travel, and visibility) or started naturally by lightning.
Featured in "Artistic Aperture" group (05/15/2015); "Midwest America Photography" group (05/18/2015); "Kansas - Showing Off Our Great State" group (09/05/2019)
Uploaded
May 14th, 2015
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Comments (6)
Donna Kennedy
I do not like to see any wildfire, but this is a fantastic shot Catherine!!...fav/tweet/like
Catherine Sherman replied:
Thank you, Donna! This is a controlled burn to replicate the fires that have kept the Flint Hills a grassland.
DJ MacIsaac
I can't believe what I see here! Catherine this is spectacular... well timed and excellent work! 😊😊😊fl
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