The tallgrass prairie in the Kansas Flint Hills is intentionally burned by cattle ranchers and land managers to mimic the natural wildfires caused by lightning strikes as a way to improve cattle forage. While the burning might appear on the surface to be destructive, fires cause the tallgrass prairie to regenerate itself. It serves as a way to manage vegetation, in particular weeds, woody vegetation, and invasive species while promoting new growth in the process. I was told that without this...
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The tallgrass prairie in the Kansas Flint Hills is intentionally burned by cattle ranchers and land managers to mimic the natural wildfires caused by lightning strikes as a way to improve cattle forage. While the burning might appear on the surface to be destructive, fires cause the tallgrass prairie to regenerate itself. It serves as a way to manage vegetation, in particular weeds, woody vegetation, and invasive species while promoting new growth in the process. I was told that without this burning, the prairie would eventually end up looking like the forested hills of the Ozarks. That hasn't happened in the Flint Hills. The soil in the Flint Hills is incredibly rocky and is the reason the land has never been turned into farmland for crops. That said, less than four percent of the original 140 million acres of tallgrass prairie remains in North America making it one of the most endangered ecosystems on the planet. Most of the remaining tallgrass prairie is in the Flint Hills in Kansas.

The prairie grassland is burned when the soil is moist but grasses are dry. This allows the deep roots of the grasses to survive and the burned grasses on the soil surface return as nutrients to the soil. These nutrients allow for the rapid growth of new grass. After approximately two weeks of burning, new grass emerges. The new grass is prized by cattle ranchers and their cattle; so rich in nutrients a steer can gain almost two pounds a day.
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