Please see below for several pieces remembering the life of Jim Sime, written by members of the Wisconsin prescribed fire community.
Please also take a few minutes to read Jim’s full obituary HERE.
According to Jim Sime, life wasn’t “a journey to the grave where you arrive all prettied up and in one piece, but one where you come sliding in sideways in a cloud of dust, your body all worn out and totally used up, yelling ‘WOO-HOO, what a ride!” Indeed! And what a sentiment to live by!
James Richard Sime died on January 22, three days after his 94 th birthday, and although the conservation community lost an incredible leader with his passing, Jim left a legacy of protected land across the Driftless. Jim began buying “marginal” land for permanent conservation back in 1965, and together with his wife Rose, continued to make land purchases over the years. Notably, the couple purchased the 86-acre “Bald Bluff” property in 1985 and donated it to Mississippi Valley Conservancy just last month as an addition to Boscobel Bluffs State Natural Area. A year earlier, Simes donated the 137-acre “Big Rock” property, first acquired in 1994, to Driftless Area Land Conservancy as an addition to Snow Bottom State Natural Area.
In total, Simes protected more than 600 acres, but Jim and Rose not only bought land for conservation, they also cared for it. Together with family and friends, their properties received years of dedicated stewardship. Simes cut brush, pulled garlic mustard, and reintroduced fire to remnant prairies and savannas. They also worked with organizations like Trout Unlimited to restore streams degraded by prior land uses.
I only had the honor of knowing Jim for just the last few years, but I’m so thankful for the opportunity. Even when he wasn’t feeling great, Jim emanated positive energy, and even when he was tired, he was willing to share his knowledge of the natural world. Thank you Jim and Rose for your incredible foresight in protecting such ecologically important gems – those “marginal” lands we will always treasure. Thank you for taking action when you had the opportunity, and thank you for all of your efforts to steward those special sites over the years. We will do our best to follow in your giant footsteps!
-WPFC Board Member & Driftless Area Land Conservancy Conservation Director Stephanie Judge
Memories of Jim Sime
Kristin Westad
In January of 2026, a few days after celebrating his 94th birthday, founding Wisconsin Fire Council member Jim Sime died. I will remember him for his love and protection of wild nature, the generous guidance and support he gave to the conservation community, his cleverness, his courage, and his faith in people.
I met Jim in the 1990s, soon after he retired from teaching chemistry. We worked side-by-side cutting red cedars, adjusting fences, and finding rare plants. He had a special knack for finding amazing pockets of biodiversity and buying them to protect them forever. He shared his amazing skills with a variety of conservation groups and with neighbors and acquaintances. With his wife Rose, Jim permanently protected hundreds of acres of amazing biodiversity. They built deep relationships with a huge variety of organizations and left massive impacts on them.
Jim always arrived at the burn in a red pickup truck with no topper. A few well-tuned tools lay in the bed, where we could easily reach them in a flash. Although he once delivered a 200-gallon cube of water to one of my burns, he usually had a smaller kit, tailored to a small burn unit that took full advantage of natural breaks. He wasn’t afraid of hard work (far from it), but he usually found clever ways to make his work more effective.
Wisconsin has a long history of what I call folk burns. I mean people burning land without pumper units, Nomex or foam. Twenty-five years ago, as the prescribed fire community moved towards bigger, more mechanized and more bureaucratic burns, Jim wanted to protect peoples’ right to conduct a safe fire with a few friends carrying hand tools and wearing cotton and wool – no DuPont products in sight. As the young Fire Council developed standards, Jim spoke up for folk burns. I am thankful that I still have the right to burn a little grass without engines or Nomex.
Rose said Jim never met a tool he didn’t like. He had a knack for making tools work better for us. Jim helped the Nature Conservancy stewardship staff to keep our equipment in top shape. He fine-tuned the ergonomics on our pumps. Many of today’s fire practitioners wouldn’t know that we old folks used to leave every burn with bruises on our shoulders from carrying water. To relieve us from the painful straps that came on new Indian pumps, Jim bought used backpacks at thrift stores. He stripped off the padded straps and hip belts. Always the teacher, Jim helped us figure out how to connect these shoulder-saving components to our pumps. Now you can buy a kit for that, but back then it required hours of shopping and tinkering. Jim wrote a maintenance checklist that many of us used to prepare our Indian pumps for the first burn of the season and keep them working smoothly.
Wildflowers provided spiritual fuel for Jim’s work. I will think of him whenever I see pale false foxglove (Agalinis skinneriana) or Great Plains lady’s tresses (Spiranthes magnicamporum) blooming on a bluff prairie. If you are lucky enough to have known Jim, you might remember him at a trout stream or in snow-filled rock crevice or in a Smokey Mountain forest. We all benefit from the conservation workers who he fostered and the special places he saved for the future. Thank you, Jim.
Photo: Jim Sime finishing a burn in his 84th year.
