How does a controlled fire help the land?

Answer 1

In some parts of the world there are areas of native habitat that have been subject to spontaneous fires for millions of years. The vegetation in those areas has adapted to this natural occurrence and many plant species actually NEED fires to begin their reproductive and regenerative processes. With the advent of man as a species into many of these areas the concept of fire suppression became introduced. This resulted in those areas having no fires for unusually long periods of time with a concurrent unusual build up of combustible ground matter. The result of that is that when a fire does break out it burn far, far more intensely resulting in the destruction of all vegetation. Controlled burning means that smaller fires are more regulalry set so as to keep the combustible matter on the ground at smaller levels resulting in "cooler" fires closer in nature to the natural ones. The plants win, the soil wins by not being overheated and the animals wins because they can survive these types of fire.