A prescribed burn at Cal Poly's Escuela Ranch is benefiting not only the land but also Cal Poly students.
“It's collaboration at its best. That's what prescribed fire is. It's finding actual objectives and benefits," CAL FIRE SLO Battalion Chief Luke Bourgault explained. He was one of the proctors helping out students in the field, conducting the burn.
For the past two years, Dr. Ashley Grupenhoff with the Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences Department, has been working on approvals, permitting and collaboration to be able to hold the first-ever prescribed burn on campus.
“It's amazing experiences to get stressed out before, be out sweating your butt off and actually seeing what fire does on the landscape,” Grupenhoff joked.
For some students, like CJ MacLaughlin, it's another opportunity to get hands-on experience in the field.
“You can't really plan to do a burn if you don't actually know what happens on the burn itself," he said.
For student Daniel Auten, it was his first time on a prescribed burn and picking up the drip torch.
“You get a big shot of adrenaline and you're just like 'oh my gosh,' like, it really puts it in perspective. This is real," he said.
The fire burned 30 acres of grassland in less than an hour, ending minutes before the winds picked up.
“It really couldn't have played out any better," Bourgault said. "Our weather criteria was right for smoke dispersal all the way down to being able to facilitate instruction for students.”
Twenty-four students participated in the senior project, with different student groups executing the burn with direction from firefighters from participating agencies. The hope is that many more burns will take place.
“The kind of, the long-term vision is that we continue to put good fire on the ground but also create more of a research opportunity," Grupenhoff added.
“It definitely opened up some new experiences I didn't really think I'd get and I really like it,” Auten said, smiling.
The burn was a collaboration between Cal Poly, California State Parks, the U.S. Forest Service, and CAL FIRE San Luis Obispo. Grupenhoff said she hopes they will be able to do it again.
