PRESCRIBED FIRE: A prescription of fire may be the best 
medicine when creating a healthy environment ... details 
ahead on Passport to Texas ... 

This is Passport to Texas

Man mimics nature when he uses fire as a land 
management tool. One way to use fire is through 
controlled burning; another way is to use prescribed fire. 

According to David Riskind (RIS'-kend), director of natural 
resources for state parks, there is a difference between 
the two.

25 -- Controlled burning is a term that people use that you start 
at part A, and you burn until you get to part B. Professional land 
managers use the term prescribed fire because you have 
specific objectives, you have specific outcomes, you burn under 
very specific conditions. And so a prescription is a planning 
document ... you lay everything out ahead of time and you then 
implement it with very specific objectives in mind.

Riskind adds that those objectives usually have to do 
with land management. 

18 -- There can be a whole series of objectives. From very simple 
things like fuel load reduction. You can have specific habitat 
objectives ... to change the vegetation structure and composition 
to support waterfowl, or to support antelope, or lesser prairie 
chickens ... or Houston toads for that matter.

Learn more about prescribed burns on the TPW website.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program supports 
our series and works to increase fishing, hunting, 
shooting and boating opportunities in Texas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife ... I'm Cecilia Nasti 







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Maximum Script time:		 0:42.0 Suggested show time: 85.0 = 1:25