People attending Sunday’s presentation on the history of wildland fire in Florida walked away with a simple message: Fire is not the enemy.
“Of the 42 community types in Florida, 16 are considered fire-dependent,” said Raelene Crandall, a fire ecologist and associate professor at the University of Florida, who led the talk, “Keep on Burnin’: The History of Wildland Fire in Florida,” at the Hogtown Creek Headwaters Nature Center. “If we don’t burn it, we lose it.”
The talk, part of Gainesville’s Perspectives in the Park series, delved into the often misunderstood role of fire in Florida’s natural landscapes, blending Indigenous knowledge with modern science to reframe how the public views wildfire and prescribed burns.
One of the biggest messages that Crandall reiterated throughout the talk was that prescribed fire is not the same as wildfire.
“We use the word ‘prescribed’ on purpose because that implies that we’re actually writing down what we’re going to do and planning it out,” said Crandall.
