Fighting Fire With Fire: Oklahoma Begins Pilot Program To Control Red Cedar Trees, Wildfires

Eastern Red Cedar trees cost the state economy half a billion dollars per year according to the Oklahoma Conservation Commission. The tree also poses a fire hazard.

People might not notice the eastern red cedar as they drive along the highway, but this native Oklahoma tree is overpopulating the state and they can do a lot of damage when they catch on fire. 

When wildfires ignite red cedars fuel the devastation.   

“They’re high in oil content,” said Trey Lam, executive director of the Oklahoma Conservation Commission. 

Lam said red cedars have sprouted out of control from Texas all the way up to the Dakotas. This year, the state legislature passed a bill into law that created the terry peach North Canadian Watershed Restoration Act. 

“Let’s do something to prevent it from happening,” Lam said. 

Oklahoma legislators passed House Bill 2239 creating a more than $3 million dollar pilot program to control this tree.   

“We’re gonna create brush-free zones,” Lam said. 

A big part of their plan is to fight fire with prescribed fire. The Prescribed Burn Association, Oklahoma State University and numerous fire agencies will help with these controlled burns.  

"Fire is the best, most economical way to do that,” Lam said. 

The OCC will study this by removing red cedars on a 5,000-acre area along the North Canadian River.  

“If it’s worth spending state dollars on, we can expand it to other areas,” Lam said. 

Oklahoma Forester Riley Coy told us the tree itself is not evil in nature.   

“I think that this tree is a native species that deserves its respect in the right places in the right numbers,” said Coy, in a previous interview with News 9 in May. 

They’re finding balance with the natural order and fighting the fires before they start.