Fort McCoy’s prescribed burn team holds last burn for 2025 spring season

Fort McCoy’s prescribed burn team held a final burn for the spring season April 23 along Badger Drop Zone on the installation’s South Post covering dozens of acres to reduce wildfire risk in that area.

The post prescribed burn team includes personnel with the Fort McCoy Directorate of Emergency Services Fire Department; Directorate of Public Works (DPW) Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch (NRB); Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security; and the Colorado State University Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands in partnership with the post.

This burn started in the center of the drop

zone and covered the more well-used areas of the drop zone and went on for more than four hours. The drop zone is used consistently by Air Force air mobility forces to conduct airdrop practice as well as C-130 Hercules training operations. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III aircraft and crews have also conducted airdrop practice over this drop zone using Container Delivery System bundles in past years.

Fort McCoy Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security officials have also stated the drop zone has been a critical training area for Army units as well where unmanned aerial vehicles have been tested, special convoy lanes have been run during major exercises as well as mobilization training in the past.

The drop zone is also home to many of the installation’s rare butterfly populations, NRB officials said, so the prescribed burn will help improve the habitat for those butterflies in addition to making the training area safer for use.

Prescribed burns improve wildlife habitat, control invasive plant species, restore and maintain native plant communities, and reduce wildfire potential. Prescribed burns benefit the environment in many ways and are one of the tools we can use on a large scale to improve wild habitat, said Fort McCoy Forester Charles Mentzel in a past news article who is part of the prescribed burn team and was present with all of the burn efforts so far in 2025.

Mentzel also said prescribed burns help set back invasive species, and they burn up their seed banks. Burns also give native species an opportunity to compete against some of the non-native species, as many native species depend on fire to help stimulate them and set back non-native species.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) also explains benefits of prescribed burns. The department’s web page at https://www.nrcs.usda.gov states “prescribed burns serve many purposes.” They include controlling undesirable vegetation; preparing sites for harvesting, planting or seeding; controlling plant disease; reducing wildfire hazards; improving wildlife habitat; improving plant production quantity and quality; and removing debris. The burns also enhance seed production, facilitating the distribution of grazing and browsing animals, restoring and maintaining ecological sites, and managing native plant diversity and composition.

“Prescribed burning is fire applied to a predetermined area within a prescribed set of conditions, dates, and with appropriate safety precautions to achieve specific purposes,” the USDA site states. “Prescribed burning can be applied to forest land, grassland, pastureland, wildlife land, hay land, and other land uses as appropriate.”

The prescribed burn team also works closely with Fort McCoy leadership works on prescribed burn operations. Local conditions are reviewed precisely and are looked at thoroughly to provide a safe and effective burn.

Prior to every prescribed burn, a meeting is held to look at the training that is happening at Fort McCoy, and then the team looks at what the requirements for the prescribed burn are, Fort McCoy Garrison leaders have stated in past news articles. They go through very organized and prescribed steps in order to make the decision whether or not a burn can take place. They look at weather conditions. They look at personnel and equipment. Essentially, they do a very organized planning session to make sure that all the conditions are met in order for Fort McCoy to do prescribed burn.

The Fort McCoy prescribed burn team also can complete burns in the fall. It’s often rare for them to complete at that time, but Mentzel said if conditions exist to do them in a safe manner at that time they would engage to cover areas that are best suited for the activity.

During the spring season, the team covered hundreds if not thousands of acres on both North Post and South Post to safer training conditions for the busy summer training season.

Fort McCoy’s motto is to be the “Total Force Training Center.”

Located in the heart of the upper Midwest, Fort McCoy is the only U.S. Army installation in Wisconsin.

The installation has provided support and facilities for the field and classroom training of more than 100,000 military personnel from all services nearly every year since 1984.

Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/fortmccoywi, and on X (formerly Twitter) by searching “usagmccoy.”

Also try downloading the My Army Post app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base. Fort McCoy is also part of Army’s Installation Management Command where “We Are The Army’s Home.”