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Why are early dry-season fires less destructive than late dry-season fires?

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Flat savanna plain with scattered acacia trees under a partly cloudy sky in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. — Savanna A savanna marked with acacia trees in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. Africa's Serengeti Plain is commonly used as an example of the savanna biome—a hot, seasonally dry ecological region characterized by an open tree canopy (i.e., scattered trees) above an understory of continuous grasses.

In savanna ecosystems, fires that occur early in the dry season are less hot and destructive than those that occur later in the season.1

The difference in intensity is primarily due to the moisture content of the vegetation. Early in the dry season, the grasses and plant material have not yet fully dried out, resulting in lower-intensity fires. As the dry season progresses, the fuel load becomes increasingly desiccated, which leads to hotter, more severe fires that can have a greater impact on the landscape.12

While early-season fires are sometimes used strategically—such as to create firebreaks to protect sensitive areas like rainforests—they can have ecological drawbacks in regions managed for grazing. In those specific areas, late dry-season fires are often considered less detrimental to the subsequent growth of new grass.1