Our results suggest that fires do impact the local conditions in tall grass prairies, particularly soil conditions and litter cover, which allows grasses to flourish. Prairies, though, are not diverse if only grasses are dominant. Therefore, fires should have a "patchy" effect, meaning their effects would best increase biodiversity if they only impact the local conditions of part of the prairie and only occur occasionally. This will result in a variety of local conditions for plant growth, allowing a variety of species to flourish.
How do we create "patchy" fires? Variable burning regimes. When managing a tall grass prairie, season of burn, burn intensity, frequency of burn, and area impacted by burn should be different from year to year.
In terms of diversity, Smokey is wrong. Fires are not inherently bad; instead, fire control by humans has disrupted an important factor of the prairie ecosystem. So while I don't recommend setting random wildfires, fire is an essential aspect of managing and reconstructing the endangered tall grass prairie ecosystem.
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