The leafy trees that Torondo on the Alto de Toronto Park are one of the last remaining black oak ecosystems in Ontario.
They are rare, so every year, fire specialists carefully carry fires near their roots, in a controlled perimeter, burning dry grass, leaves and twigs.
The undula smoke on the trees, drifting through parts of the park before dissipating. The flames persist where they are placed, turning the weeds into ashes.
He traditional and prescribed Burns in High Park has continued for two decades, called Biinaakzigawok Anishnaabeg by the circle of indigenous land administration that collaborates with the city of Toronto on the current interpretation of what was a long -standing indigenous practice.
While the colonial rules in Canada forbidden for a long time Traditional fire practices of indigenous communitiesThat has been changing, with more use of prescribed burning not only for Forest fire protection But ecosystem health.
Renny Grilz is a resource management officer for the Meewasin Valley authority, a Saskatoon conservation organization that uses fires prescribed inside and outside the city limits.
“Part of the conservation of, you know, the last 30 years was’ to put it aside, nature will take care of itself,” said Grilz.
“We are realizing that no, we need to manage these landscapes.”
Fire as a tool in urban areas
The idea of a prescribed burn is to use a fast and low fire along soil level.
Introduce fire to an ecosystem It helps to lose the fuel forest, which can include things like leaflet, sticks and dead plants. In High Park, this gives fire -resistant species such as Black Oak, the space to prosper burning invasive species and allowing more air, nutrients and sunlight to reach them.
In March of this year, the city of Edmonton made its First burn prescribed within the boundaries of the cityto reduce the risk of forest fires.
“This burn helped the city effectively reduce the vegetation that the forest fire could have fed and helped increase public safety by reducing the risk of forest fires in the area,” said Graeme Mcalister, deputy fire deputy, community security and risk with the city of Edmonton in an email to the CBC news.
But performing a burn prescribed in an urban area comes with risks.
“It has high value assets that surround the area that you want to burn, but also smoke management becomes very critical,” said Grilz.
Winnipeg has been making burns prescribed since the 1980s, for example, but Grilz says that other urban areas such as Calgary, Regina and Moose Jaw, Sask., Have also expressed interest in prescribed fires.
“Like them [urban areas] I advance their skills sets or knowledge base within these urban areas and their planning areas, they are beginning to consider fire as a management tool, “Grilz told CBC.
“It’s really exciting.”
Helping native plants
In the South densely populated with Ontario, high grass habitats have a fundamental role, but are in danger. They provide habitats for birds living on the ground such as Bobolinks and Eastern Meadowlarks, both species protected in Canada.
“High grass communities have been drastically reduced, as less than one percent of what was originally in southern Ontario, it remains native high grass. So we are trying to recover that community,” said Adam Brylowski, conservation manager and path in the Bruce Trail ConservancyA non -profit organization that manages land along the Unesco World Biosphere of the Unesco de Niagara.
Bruce Trail Conservancy assumes ecological restoration projects, which is strongly inclined to planting trees and wild flowers in the past, according to Brylowski.
In 2019, they also recognized the importance of the restoration of the high grass meadow. After planning and preparing a site, Bruce Trail Conservancy made his first burn prescribed in 2022.
Native pastures need fire so that their seeds germinate, but can kill invasive species such as Kentucky Bluegrass and Creted Wheatgrass.
The Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG), which covers about 800 hectares along the banks of the Ontario Lake between Burlington and Hamilton, also uses prescribed burns.
The RBG has carried out burns in different places since 1997, although they have not been made every year.
This year, the objective was to improve the habitat of rare plants, according to a public notice. This includes Big Bluestem and Goldenrods, both native species in high grass grass ecosystems.
