© 2025 University of Missouri - KBIA
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Discover Nature: Prescribed Fire

Two firefighters wearing protective equipment stand at the edge of tall brown grass as orange flames and brown smoke rise behind them.
Managing land with prescribed fire can help maintain the health and diversity of Missouri’s natural communities.";

Fire plays an important role in all our lives. To some, memories of campfires bring warm and pleasant feelings, while others remember the horrors of wildfires.

 

This week on Discover Nature, we look at how fire is used as a land management tool. 

 

In nature, fire can be both beneficial and destructive. Most of America’s landscape has burned at least once in the past few hundred years, and many animals and plants have adapted to live with fire. 

 

Fire removes leaf litter and keeps brush from forming dense thickets. This can result in richer plant diversity compared to nearby, unburned areas. 

 

Fire is also an important part of the global carbon cycle: releasing chemicals bound into plants during growth, returning carbon to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide gas, and a variety of mineral nutrients to the soil as ash. 

 

Despite decades of active fire suppression, the ecological benefits of fire have returned to favor among conservation land management experts. 

 

Today, carefully controlled burns are again helping to restore natural communities such as prairies, glades, and woodlands, and even help prevent unplanned wildfires by removing dense fuels from the landscape. 

 

Learn more about prescribed fire as a land management tool, and find workshops and other information to help you use fire safely with the Missouri Department of Conservation.

 

Discover Nature is sponsored by the Missouri Department of Conservation.

Kyle Felling’s work at KBIA spans more than three decades. In 2025, he became KBIA and KMUC's Station Manager. He began volunteering at the station while he was a Political Science student at the University of Missouri. After being hired as a full-time announcer, he served as the long-time local host of NPR’s All Things Considered on KBIA, and was Music Director for a number of years. Starting in 2010, Kyle became KBIA’s Program Director, overseeing on-air programming and operations while training and supervising the station’s on-air staff. During that period, KBIA regularly ranked among the top stations in the Columbia market, and among the most listened to stations in the country. He was instrumental in the launch of KBIA’s sister station, Classical 90.5 FM in 2015, and helped to build it into a strong community resource for classical music. Kyle has also worked as an instructor in the MU School of Journalism, training the next generation of journalists and strategic communicators. In his spare time, he enjoys playing competitive pinball, reading comic books and Joan Didion, watching the Kansas City Chiefs, and listening to Bruce Springsteen and the legendary E Street Band.
Related Content