Flames of Renewal

Bringing Fire Back to the Prairie

Controlled burn at Admiralty Inlet Preserve in October 2023.

Since about 9,000 B.C., the fertile, open prairies on Whidbey and Camano Islands provided the indigenous Coast Salish people with a wealth of edible greens and root vegetables and an abundance of game animals. During most of those millennia, the indigenous people used fire as the primary tool for maintaining and managing these prairies to eliminate encroaching trees and shrubs and enhance food production.

When Europeans arrived on Whidbey Island, they found approximately 80,000 acres of prairies. Today, due to conversion of prairie lands to agriculture and development, less than one percent of the Island’s native prairies remain.

Fortunately, two significant native prairies are protected at the Land Trust’s Admiralty Inlet Preserve near Coupeville. Years ago, this site had two of only 12 populations in the world, but thanks to restoration efforts by organizations like the Whidbey Camano Land Trust, the golden paintbrush has been removed from the federal endangered plants list. Ongoing restoration efforts spanning 20 years have included mowing, controlled burns, seeding and planting over 250,000 native prairie plants on this preserve.

The Land Trust has reintroduced controlled fires to these prairie remnants because, as the Islands’ indigenous people knew, prairies don’t stay prairies without management, and fire does the job best.

Periodic controlled burns remove the dense build-up of dead vegetation, giving prairie plants space and nutrients to grow, and they do it better than the other chemical and mechanical methods at our disposal. The burns also improve habitat for native birds, bees and butterflies.