Prescribed Fire Returns to Good Harbor at Sleeping Bear Dunes, 2023

In late May 2023, firefighters gathered at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on Lake Michigan to put fire back into a forest that had seen little of it for more than a century. The crew came from the Great Lakes Fire Management Zone, based at Indiana Dunes National Park, from Sleeping Bear Dunes itself, from the Michigan DNR and from the National Park Service's Black Hills Wildland Fire Module. Their job was the Good Harbor Prescribed Fires.

A firefighter uses a drip torch to light leaf litter and other surface fuels along the south side of the Good Harbor Trail burn, with a Type 4 wildland fire engine following to monitor the fire. NPS/M. Bell

A fire-dependent forest

The Good Harbor burn units lie along Good Harbor Bay and hold fire-dependent plant communities: a dry-mesic northern forest and wooded swales. The swales support wildflowers, wetlands and other plants that add to the lakeshore's diversity.

The burns had five goals:

• reduce the fuel built up on the forest floor;
• rejuvenate blueberries and huckleberries;
• thin out seedlings and saplings to open the understory;
• protect the red and white pines; and
• burn in a mosaic pattern that follows the topography and fuels.

Preparing and burning

Through the spring, Great Lakes crews made several trips to the park to scout fire line locations, build fire breaks, set up weather stations and meet with park managers before returning to carry out the burns.

Because the area had little history of fire going back more than 100 years, managers expected the dense forest to burn at low intensity, with little chance of the fire causing trouble near neighboring homes. That is what happened: some areas burned well and others barely burned at all. For a first-entry burn, managers were pleased.

Neighbors and smoke

Local homeowners were at first uneasy about a prescribed fire across the street. After watching how crews kept the fire manageable and the smoke away from their houses, they came to better understand the importance of prescribed fire in restoring what they regard as their own local forest.

Weeks of smoldering

For several weeks in May and June, fire staff and park rangers regularly checked the interiors of the burns, watching spots still giving off smoke. Much as in a natural wildfire, like those that swept the area some 170 years earlier, logs deep inside the perimeter smoldered for weeks until only ash remained. That process returns nutrients from the burned material to the soil for other plants to use.

The park and the Great Lakes Fire Management Zone plan to continue prescribed burns on the other Good Harbor units in the years ahead.

Sources

• National Park Service, "Using fire as a restoration tool at Sleeping Bear Dunes" (Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore): https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/using-fire-as-a-restoration-tool-at-sleeping-bear-dunes.htm