ParkTalk Podcast: Prescribed Burns and Natural Maintenance

Thursday, September 4, 2025

Episode Description:

Naperville Park District conducts seasonal prescribed burns in many of its parks, but what exactly does that mean? Park Specialists Olivia Koehn and Tammy Peterson join the ParkTalk Podcast to educate listeners on the practice of prescribed burns and how the Park District uses them as a natural management tool.

Quotes from the Episode:

Can you explain the benefits of prescribed burns?

One of the biggest benefits we find is because prescribed fires date back so long, our native plants really grew to rely on that fire to germinate and grow, and they really respond very well to it, whereas our invasive plants don’t do well with the fire. When a fire comes through, it helps to knock back our invasives while promoting the growth of our native plants. – Olivia Koehn 

Another benefit is nutrient cycling. It speeds up the process of breaking down the nutrients because of the burning and the ashes going into the soil. – Tammy Peterson

How does the Park District determine which locations are added to the list?

We have a list of all the sites we like to burn and we have it on a rotation. It’s kind of circumstantial, so it depends. If there’s a lot of invasive species in that area, we’ll probably be burning it every other year, or some sites we burn every year just to combat that. – Tammy Peterson

What safety measures are employed during the process?

Besides notifying schools, fire departments and other people we need to notify, we put up signs and we have radios to communicate since we most likely won’t be close to each other. We make sure we have all the equipment and it’s working; we have enough water – we just make sure we’re prepared in case anything happens. – Tammy Peterson

The big one is always having enough water on hand. For Central Parks, we have two water tanks on every single burn which is about 200 gallons. We also have access to what we call a trash pump that we can throw into a pond or river, and it basically turns into a fire hose if we need it. We really try to plan ahead as much as possible. – Olivia Koehn