Px to Burn

 27 Apr 2009 12:40:28 am

The week in review……..We have now been schooled in the science/art of prescribed burning. Prescribed burning is purposefully setting fire to an area in order to manipulate the local flora into a desirable set of species, or just burn it all and start again. Mostly used here in Minnesota for prairie and savanna restoration. It kind of seems to me like mowing the grass with fire, so you can zap the roots too. It can be a tricky business though. Obviously if you play with fire you can get burnt. It is risky risk management at it best. One of those things that you would think there would be more training to before you start burning, but we just kind of got thrown into it. You pay attention to the people with experience and try and stay in the safety zones that are designated before we start.
Before we could start burning we had to clean up one of our burn units (area designated for a burn). Which involved cutting out 6” – 12” diameter at breast height (dbh) trees, that were not oak. So the ashes and basswoods were the designated targets. Once they are felled we drug them out of the woods with our utility atv’s. Which are Polaris rangers, an off road golf cart, more or less, with 6 wheel drive capabilities.

I felt like a logger. We had designated “skid trails.” Pulling the trees out of the woods was really fun, we then took them down the hill and put it into a big pile, in order to reduce the amount of burnable fuel in the burn unit.



The other Bemidji Crew worked on this sight the week before we got there doing the same type of thing, so the tree removal task was made easier thanks to them. We also were working with SRS which is a bunch of inmates on a work release kind of program. They were for the most part good help, and funny dudes. I’m sure they were just happy to be outside. A retired sheriff was in charge of them, and he and I ended up butting heads and getting into an argument….Some people, I tell you what. He threw a hissy because my guys were the chainsaw guys, and he didn’t like the way in which we were felling the trees. He was an experienced sawyer who is certified to train chainsaw use to people, but I wasn’t about to give my guys a new way of cutting trees down. It just didn’t seem safe at the time, and so I told him thanks, but no thanks. I think he was insulted because he felt he was going out of his way to show us a neat trick. I tried to be courteous and explain to him that we had to stick to the way we were trained, but I got the freakin “you know it all” comment and he drove away on his tractor. Oh I could have snapped right there, but I restrained, just figured somebody peed in his coffee that morning or something. Then he went and told all of the convicts, so I had to make sure I wasn’t going to get a prison shank shoved in my back the rest of the week Of coarse our boss had to find out, and as much as she told me I did the right thing, I still think that I looked like the bad guy to her. Especially since she had worked with the guy many times, and me only once, oh well, she’ll learn.
Ok onto the fires. It’s all about the weather. A consistent light wind is desired, with no rain. You also need some sort of an anchor point or break in order to separate what you want to burn with what needs burned. Something like a road or a lake is the best hard break you can have. Some of our burns did allow for this, but a lot of times we were using horse trails that had been mowed down in order to stop the flame from jumping out of the burn line. You start on the down wind most side of the burn unit, and burn out a corner, which is you anchor point. And you spread out from there. One crew takes one flank and the other crew takes the other. An engine leads the way laying a wet line, and the ignitor follow up lighting a line just inside of the wet grass. Then a follow up truck stays back and keeps an eye out for fires that aren’t doing what they are suppose to do. You try to keep pace with the crew working the other flank until you come to the end, when you are lighting on the complete upwind side of the burn unit. This is a scramble, to get it lit and get out of its way. You are essentially starting what is called a running head fire. Which is scary stuff, you get some of the highest flames, and fasting moving fire. You can here the flames coming from the other flank, and it sounds like 14 or 15 horses running at you. The adrenaline gets going needless to say.
Ok enough with the boring descriptions, here’s the pictures.



Mark, starting our line....



Building up the corner, one crew goes left the other goes right, the more black, the more safe zone there is.



Mark, admiring his work...



Mark and Peter trying to look like men



Me and my drip torch (blue helmet) Peter laying a wet line (Yellow helmet) and Chris our burn boss (green helmet)



Close up of Peter and myself...



Me checking the progress of the line that was being burnt out on the distant tree line, don't want to get to far ahead of them...



Fire 'a' burning, the two lines coming together



Peter torching away



I think this is Joe, but check out those heat waves, I think this is a really cool picture...looks impressionistic? van Gogh eat your heart out

This weekend I got paid, so naturally I had to go out and blow some of my hard earned coin. So I made my annual trip to the mall and spent some money. I also went out and played some tennis yesterday. It was fun, really a nice day up here. Going out today to scout out some area lakes so I know where to go when the fishing opener gets here.

(Just got back from the scouting adventure, and I simply can't wait to get out on some of these little lakes, it will be perfect in my little boat.)

My crew goes back to burning this week, if the weather holds we could be back to the same place, or somewhere else in the state. Since my crew has the contracts to do these burns, and the other Bemidji crew does not we are required to switch out a crew member every week, so this week we will have a 'new' crew member in our group. Should be interesting to see how we do, no worries.

Though I do not know where I will be going I know that at the end of the day I will be tired and dirty and loving every minute.
Have a good week, and take care guys!!!

Category : General | Posted By : paul | Comments [5] | Trackbacks [0]