Burning a Prairie

[RobS]

Thanks guys, lots of good input. I'm now juggling my work schedule, home schedule, friends schedules and the weather to figure out when to do this. I may try a small area for practice, that's a good suggestion. I'll see one of the volunteer firefighters this evening and ask about their interest.

And I guess I'll have to check out CBN as well /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[froggy]

If they agree to help you with the burning, you may want to give them a donation, too.

When the VFD put out a fire that started on my old place in Somervell County, I made a substantial donation afterwards. They use the funds for training.

 

[RobertN]

We would do it just for the training. Pizza and gatorade does help though /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

In our area, our district and a couple districts around us look for places to do this in the spring, as a practice run for wildland season. We usually get 10-15 engines out of local stations(paid and volunteer staff). It works well for us, because we train with our crews, but also get to work cross agency. We also train monthly as single engine companies too.

 

[Panache]

Does the Mich Dept of Forests (or wWhat ever there are called in your area) have a fire web site? Alabama does and it gives great forcasts about 2 days out.

 

[TC18guy]

It would be MDNR or MDEQ. both have websites at www.michigan.gov. I've heard the DNR issue warnings during extreme dry spells, but not of regular forecasts. Couldn't hurt to check.

 

[RobS]

Finally had decent conditions this evening to try a prairie burn. It's been dry the last couple of days, light winds and I was home for a change! Of course, my biggest concern was not burning something I shouldn't have and that turned out to be no problem. My second concern was that it wouldn't burn and that became the bigger problem.

Started in one corner where it would burn into the breeze. That seemed the safest but it didn't get very far. Decided to try the opposite corner and that worked OK. Here's a pic /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[RobS]

The fire burned very slowly and quite controllably. This of course, was good. Every now and then, it would hit a clump of little bluestem grass and blaze up nicely /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[RobS]

In fact, it burned slowly enough that we could enjoy a glass of wine and I could take some pictures. We're having cooler than normal temperatures so the flames felt good. My prep work along the edges with my landscape rake paid off as the fire kept itself contained with little or no effort on our parts /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[RobS]

Eventually though, it was getting late and we could tell it wasn't going to burn the entire area any time soon. We put it out with rakes, which was good practice. Here's one final shot. I'll take a blackened picture in the morning when I can see for myself how much of it burned /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[RobS]

Finished the burn this morning. It went much better today, might have been the breeze it needed to keep going. It was remarkable easy to keep confined to the field though I'll not get complacent for future burns.

Here's a shot from my favorite window in the house /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif