Burning slash, look ma... no grapple

[Highbeam]

The wetland guy came out to my place to advise me on how to proceed with my site development. It turns out that I have to prove that I don't have a wetland before I can even apply for a building permit. I had done plenty of nonpermitted clearing and several slash piles have been made over the last few years. The wetland guy advised me to make them go away before submitting a wetland report since the government guy will come out and be unhappy with the obvious clearing activity. So "make it look nice" was my order.

My first operation and the project of this thread is to burn a 90 foot long by 30 foot wide by 8 foot tall pile of slash that was pushed together by me when I first bought my first bulldozer. It takes experience and skill to pile slash with a bulldozer without a lot of dirt being included. Lots of dirt means the pile won't burn and besides, I had no intention of lighting a pile that big on fire all at once. I am more of the 20 foot diameter max burn pile type.

So here is the first photo. It is of the 30 foot wide end and the fire has been going for a bit of the morning. I had two days of a three day weekend to burn since father's day at home was not to be missed. The program is to pull out bites of slash and roll them to knock the dirt off and then stack them onto the burn pile. Boy I wish I had a grapple. Thank goodness for the toothbar.

 

[Highbeam]

If you ever have a lot of fresh wood on a fire, a good bed of coals under the fresh wood, and really want to get some action going then grab your leaf blower and zip tie the throttle open and set it to blast into the heart of the fire. Holy smokes it gets hot and the fire grows. Smoke is greatly reduced and rises higher due to the heat.

 

[Highbeam]

I'm just over halfway at the end of day one. I found one problem, a bee hive in the end of a log. I am allergic to the stings and even have the epipen in case I am swarmed but these bees seemed to be pretty mild like honey bees. I resolved to return the next day with wasp spray. I got there early the next morning (50 mile trailer ride) and the nest looked really quiet so I grabbed the log with the hive and put it in the fire. I stuffed my propane weed burner (great fire starter) into the log end and cooked the nest. I though that would be the end of it but instead the bees came back from wherever they were hiding, maybe gathering pollen, and were ticked off looking for their nest. I really made it worse since now the bees were all over that pile looking for momma. The bees were pretty upset about that for the rest of the day.

This picture is at the end of day one. About half way. I really didn't think this pile would be done in two days but I am seeing hope.

 

[Highbeam]

So here I am on the second day and I have a highly productive process now that there is room to work. I load the fire up with slash and try and get it burning. Then I go and get another full load of slash ready to be put on. It is my "on deck" pile. I can push a pretty huge pile of slash along the ground without plowing a bunch of dirt into the fire. The toothbar has again paid for itself.

I can't put too much slash on at once since the fire is in the forest and trees are a bit close but also since I don't want to get too close to a raging fire with my tractor.

Check out the dead branch of the alder tree. That was live but a previous fire scorched it a little too much.

 

[Highbeam]

The thing is that there is a lot of waiting involved. Time to reflect, put your feet up, wet your whistle, and appreciate the work.

 

[Highbeam]

By the end of the second day I had loaded all the slash onto the fire. I then set the rippers down and rolled the box blade forward to rake the sticks out of the soil. This is also a poor mans chisel plow. All the raked out sticks went onto the burn pile and they burnt up.

Remember that if you get a hot enough fire that you can even burn dirt. Not too much dirt but a good bit will be tolerated.

 

[Highbeam]

So while the fire burnt down I grabbed the mower and diced up the ryegrass a bit. I won't leave a fire burning if the flames are still dancing. I pretty much need to wait until nothing but a huge pile of white coals and ash are left. That pile will smolder for another couple of weeks but the open flame goes away pretty fast.

Here I am loaded up to go home. It stays light until about 9:30 this time of year so I don't pull into my suburban home until about 11 PM stinking like old smoke and diesel. A weekend like this leaves me 5-7 pounds lighter and pretty tired.

Besides just pushing the pile apart there was plenty of chainsaw work and dragging out slash with a logging chain.

I get to do it again this Friday. I need to work swiftly before the burn bans come on.

Thanks for reading.

 

[regor66]

The thing is that there is a lot of waiting involved. Time to reflect, put your feet up, wet your whistle, and appreciate the work.

I fully understand your satisfaction. Cleared about 10 of our 30 acres here and have really enjoyed seeing the progress as we clean up what the dozer left. Gonna leave the rest in it's natural state. Snakes gotta have a place too. Beautiful place you have there. Be sure to take in plenty of fluids when you work hard like that. Designated driver ain't a bad idea either. We have lots of fire ants and I have found that they do not like recycled Miller Lite. Not sure if it kills them or they just move.

 

[EddieWalker]

Looks like your doing a great job. I just love it when a burn pile is gone and the ground is all cleaned up afterwards!!!!

Too bad about having to prove your not a wetlands. I've heard some horror stories about that, but what's even worse is when you have to prove you don't have an endangered animal on your land. One time I helped prove that a certain type of salimander didn't exist on a friends land. But that was in California. Hopefully things haven't gotten as bad there.

Eddie

 

[psuedofarmer]

...grab your leaf blower and zip tie the throttle open and set it to blast into the heart of the fire.

you've just discovered the fastest way to burn brush.. i'm tempted to post a pic of my burn pile (75x35x25) from last winter. we tried like heck to keep it going, then got the same idea you came up with..

the flames were spotted from the summit of the mountain (imagine my neighbors horror when reached the summit and saw HUGE flames shooting up in the field across from his house).

needless to say, he set a land speed record from the summit to the farm..

everyone loves a good fire!

pf