Historical fire patterns in the Ozarks

In southern and eastern Missouri, fires would encounter more natural firebreaks and moister conditions that limited their influence and switched the competitive advantage back to forests. However, fires can also start locally, and environmental factors that created drier sites and conditions that favored fire, would still burn more frequently than surrounding areas. Sites with southwest aspects and thin soils are examples. Under the right conditions, such sites would support prairies, glades or savannahs. While forests dominated the southern and eastern portion of Missouri, grassland communities were common in openings within the forest or as open woodlands with a grassy understory.

The result was that Missouri grasslands had definite limits. A prairie did not stretch endlessly into the distance as it did on the Great Plains. A tree line was always visible somewhere on the horizon. Forested areas included many grassy openings and savannahs. Wherever fire occurred often enough to limit the growth of trees, grasslands were able to extend into Missouri adding diversity to the landscape.