Moss in a prairie planting after burning.

The same moss a few days later. Burning the prairie planting appears to have killed this moss. It took a few days before the moss changed color, and I could see it had been killed.

This is moss that survived the burning. The fire did not burn the sedge stems all the way to the ground. In this area, the vegetation had not been flatten by wildlife. Also, I sprayed water on a nearby cage around a plant to prevent the cage from catching fire. This reduced the fire intensity in this spot.

In the future, I am going to try burning when the air temperature is below freezing. My experience has been that if burning is done at below freezing then the dead part of the sedges burn but not the green parts. This should reduce fire intensity enough that organisms on the soil surface are not killed. Burning in this manner will still remove dead leaf material, increasing the light reaching the ground. Removing smothering dead material will help moss and other small plants grow. I am hopeful this will give me the benefit of burning without the harm. I will report on whether I am successful in the future.