When you think of fire, destruction maybe one of the things that comes to mind, but in nature, controlled fire can stimulate life.

More conservationists in Illinois might use this technique except for one big issue.

They can't get affordable insurance.

Well, now the Nature Conservancy in Illinois is asking state lawmakers to help.

All right, bill, tell us about the importance of prescribed burns and what you use them for.

- Yeah, prescribed fire is the most important tool we have in our toolbox.

It's helping us set back a lot of brush, it cycles nutrients, it brings health back to the land.

Fire brings sunshine, sunshine helps these systems thrive.

So we understand, I think most people get that prescript fire is a good thing and we wanna keep working to make fire safe and effective and build that community of fire practitioners.

- And what kind of things are you burning?

- [Bill] Prairies, woodlands, and wetlands and the woodlands that tend to be Oak-Hickory woodlands and the burning helps keep the oak and hickory propagating.

- [Mark] And if you didn't do these prescribed fires, how could you get the same result using another method?

Or could you?

- [Bill] You can't really mimic it.

On a very small scale, you might be able to work with mowers and hand tools, but as soon as you scale up beyond an acre, you start getting into a problem where fire is the only tool that's gonna be useful.

- And where around Illinois is the Nature Conservancy using prescribed burns?

- We're using them on the south side, south of Chicago and Markham.

We're down on the Illinois River at Emiquon and Spunky Bottoms.

We're working in Kankakee Sands area near Pembroke Township and we're down in southern Illinois partnering with DNR down there and the US Forest Service on the Shawnee National Forest.

- All right, let's talk a little bit about the prescribed Burn Liability claims pilot program.

And tell us how the Nature Conservancy and those proponents of using controlled burns are trying to get some work done in Springfield.

- [Gary] Yeah, this legislation is a win-win for us.

A claims fund would allow an insurance provider to realize that if there is an incident on a prescribed fire, the first money is gonna come from the claims fund.

And so the insurance provider says, I will give you a policy then and I will be the second money that that goes out if an incident were to occur.

So other states are adopting this and they're finding that it's a successful way to encourage insurers to keep giving insurance to landowners and non-profits that are trying to do prescribed fire.

- We've seen different municipalities around the state and including here in central Illinois, different cities and counties, use prescribed burns.

How difficult is it, do you think, for them to get that insurance done and know that while they're doing this thing that's good for the environment, they're covered also?

- Yeah, we've seen all the heartache in the west coast with California fires and so much property damage has occurred there for wildfires.

And so when you go to try and get insurance, if you say you wanna, can you cover fire, it scares the insurance providers.

And we're finding that getting insurance is more difficult.

Some people are losing their policies because we're being thrown into the same national concern about wildfires, whereas prescribed fires are generally low complexity, safe, and effective.

- And tell us now, as of today, as we're recording this, what kind of response that you've gotten from politicians in Springfield?

Is it mostly supportive?

Do they still have questions?

Where are we at right now?

- Well, we have a couple of sponsors.

We have, you know, the way legislation works, we are optimistic that we're gonna get a bill that will be voted on and we're working on that.

And I have not heard of concerns about the legislation because it doesn't change the liability standing of fire.

So I think that it's mostly a question of can we get the attention of the people we need to get?

Are they willing to make a vote on it?

And then, how do you fund such a claims fund?

- Yeah, I guess that is the other question about funding the fund.

- Yeah.

- What have you thought about that so far?

- Yeah, I've been saying that we're, the claims fund is kind of like a bucket of funds that can come from the public sector, it can come from the private sector, it can be nonprofits donating towards it.

Right now the legislation doesn't have money attached to it.

So we're like, we're funding this empty bucket that we hope to fill in the future to have this claims fund and we'll see how that goes.

If you do not put prescribed fire across your landscape, what you end up with is oak woods that are just choked with brush.

The oak stop regenerating the ground layer.

Plants are shaded out and the you end up with mud is your most common ground cover in your oak woods.

If you have prairies, they get full of brush.

You can't even walk through 'em.

Full of briers and multiple rows.

And again, you lose the whole prairie vegetation is just shaded out.

So fire is essential.

It's like sunlight, bringing sunlight to the landscape and without fire you end up with poor land health.