Aaron Sexton, an assistant professor of plant science from Cornell University, was addressing employees of the city’s parks department last year when he made a startling suggestion. “We should burn New York City parks,” he said. His audience laughed, but he wasn’t exactly kidding.
Dr. Sexton was speaking in October 2025, less than a year after a spate of wildfires had overwhelmed the region with smoke. Unusually, forests in many of New York City’s parks burned, too, including a two-acre blaze at the center of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, a rolling landscape of woodlands, water features and meadows that is one of the city’s gems.
The wildfires were alarming to New Yorkers, but they were also a rare scientific opportunity. Urban woodlands don’t catch fire very often. Dr. Sexton immediately knew he wanted to study them. After months of measuring and counting seedlings that grew back in the charred soil, Dr. Sexton was convinced that fire was good for the parks. So much so, he began advocating that the city consider setting them alight on purpose.
Controlled burns, also called prescribed fires, are a common method of burning vegetation to restore wildlife habitats or reduce wildfire risk. Climate change has made deadly wildfires more common worldwide. Controlled burns are a win-win strategy for today’s and tomorrow’s problems, he said. To read the full story.