Brush and debris pile burning in cold weather?

Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Almost met my end with one of these Helicopter delivery burns. Had a prescribe burns setup for 4000 acres broke up for 4 burns, burn 1,2,3.4, to take place in stages. I set up the burns with safe evacuation zones that was already bulldozed out for each zone. Helicopter refuel and water drop was located outside the burn zones.

We started the burn on zone 1, everything went fine till we noticed smoke behind us and in the wrong place. The Helicopter had already started burn 2 and now we were cut off from the safe evacuation zone on zone 1 and with the Helicopter starting the fire behind us we were now caught in a head fire and cut off from escape. Luck we had the bulldozer close, we started pushing out a safe zone and burn back fires to create a safe zone.When the fire got to us we got in the trucks to get away from the heat, it got so hot that it blistered the paint on some of the trucks.
 
There is nothing on that scale up here. The largest I have seen is 70 acres but there may have been larger ones but still nothing whatsoever like that.
It was Timber Company land, I believe it was 4000 acres of a 35,000 acre preserve the State leased for a game preserve. It was mixed, about 2000 acres 2 1/2 year old clearcut that had been sprayed with chemical for to prepare for burning and replanting, about a 1000 acres of 14 year old loblolly pine, and 1000 acres of 25 year old loblolly pine that they were going to clearcut in 2 years.

We had to prepare the burns different for the different age trees. Real hot for the clearcut, cool for the 14 year old loblolly pine, hot for the 25 year old loblolly pine. Clearcut we would head fire to get the heat up, the 14 year old loblolly pine we would back burn and use hand torches and the foxfire to lay the fire line, and the 25 year old loblolly pine we would do a perimeter burn.

You can see in this video how a hot fire and updraft affects a fire, ofter a head fire will cause this.

 
It was Timber Company land, I believe it was 4000 acres of a 35,000 acre preserve the State leased for a game preserve. It was mixed, about 2000 acres 2 1/2 year old clearcut that had been sprayed with chemical for to prepare for burning and replanting, about a 1000 acres of 14 year old loblolly pine, and 1000 acres of 25 year old loblolly pine that they were going to clearcut in 2 years.

We had to prepare the burns different for the different age trees. Real hot for the clearcut, cool for the 14 year old loblolly pine, hot for the 25 year old loblolly pine. Clearcut we would head fire to get the heat up, the 14 year old loblolly pine we would back burn and use hand torches and the foxfire to lay the fire line, and the 25 year old loblolly pine we would do a perimeter burn.

You can see in this video how a hot fire and updraft affects a fire, ofter a head fire will cause this.


Crazy.
Those firefighters are amazing. I'm wondering why they don't wear respirators in all that smoke?
 
Crazy.
Those firefighters are amazing. I'm wondering why they don't wear respirators in all that smoke?
The updraft will carry most of the smoke up at the site of the fire, the problem with the smoke will be downwind, maybe miles and miles from the fire. You can see how strong the updraft is by the debris it picking up, most of what you see around the firefighters is dust generated by the wind from the updraft.

This is the reason I had to submit an environmental impact plan as a certified prescribe burn manager, it included plans for smoke control and environmental impact. We had to do this to get state burn insurance. I also carried Personal Activity Liability Insurance plan as do most all land corporation.
 
I find it refreshing we can discuss this without all the bull crap. I enjoy relating with others on experiences we have had and learned.
Me too.
I can't really "relate" to the dangerous jobs most of you guys have, but I find reading about what you do interesting and certainly can respect it. :cheers:
 
Me too.
I can't really "relate" to the dangerous jobs most of you guys have, but I find reading about what you do interesting and certainly can respect it. :cheers:
Most of my dangers were in mis-execution of the burn plan or not anticipating a problem. The folks that really are in danger is the Hotshots, where they have no control and have to establish control over a changing situation minute by minute.

I work some wildfires and I can tell you it's hair razing. I did work in putting in fire brakes and backfire brake to help the Hotshots control the fire. If there were structures in danger we secured them first then we moved to other places to mitigate the fires progression. That is where my experience as a prescribe burn manager was most helpful, reading the lay of the land and anticipating what the fire will do.
 
Two day defensible-space job on the heels of several inches of rain. Did most of the burning around the house and outbuildings yesterday. Gonna try to finish the last little bit near the house today then work the next zone outside of the 100'. 3-4' deep/thick honeysuckle with a sprinkling of poison oak everywhere! Fun times!20240325_182746.jpg20240325_182817.jpg20240325_134052.jpg20240325_183501.jpg20240325_183427.jpg20240325_183417.jpg20240325_134101.jpg20240325_134057.jpg
 
Back
Top