Slash removal technique

[smokechase II]

Smaller piles at the end of the day are hand piles in a harvested then post commercial thinned unit.
The larger pile is root wads from a road widening project. They were taken to a cinder pit then we wait for the right weather.
I assume this is also SOP for slash removal by arborists in an urban setting.

 

[JohnH]

We chip the tops or grind them with a Fecon Bull Hog mower

 

[Ryan Willock]

Nice pics. Around here we don't burn for a couple of reasons, one is time two is we're not allowed to burn in city limits.

 

[Ekka]

Looks bloody cold there mate, burning might be a warming option to a days work.:biggrinbounce2:

No burning here, dont even burn cane anymore and even rural areas are out. But I like a good fire, that first shot was great.

I think you and A Lopa should get together.

 

[smokechase II]

more burning

One photo shows how to survive part of the time. Lite a root wad.

The other shows how you can dampen how hot a pile will burn by allowing it to get somewhat wet.

 

[smokechase II]

every other pile

Shows how you can limit damage to tightly spaced leave trees by only liting just a few piles at a time.
Not rocket science but it works.

Other photo shows how a wet handpile will start burning slowly and the combustion will be incomplete producing lots of black smoke. After a couple minutes the heat from the piles burning will dry out the remaining wood enough to burn relatively cleanly.

 

[smokechase II]

final product

Photo shows a commercially logged stand that was then thinned and then piled by heavy equipment and then the grapple piles burned.
Well done here too.
OK so the snow hides some, but in a few years it'll look like that anyway.

 

[Ekka]

Nice pics, even the air looks crisp.

 

[Doctor Dave]

Photo shows a commercially logged stand that was then thinned and then piled by heavy equipment and then the grapple piles burned.
Well done here too.
OK so the snow hides some, but in a few years it'll look like that anyway.

Were those taken this year? Looks a lot like the area near the headwaters of the Metolius R. I happened to see a controlled burn down there a few weeks ago; they burned the handpiles first, and then broadcast burn to treat the brush and fine slash. I Drove right up to the broadcast burn and walked into it a bit; it just crept around, flaring up here and there to burn some bitterbrush. No snow then. There wasn't even anyone around, just a sign along the road: "Controlled burn ahead".

 

[Sprig]

Great pics smokechase! Nice clean-up job, ahhhhhhhh, brings out the pyro in me for sure. :angry2:
Quick story: When I was in my early 20s I did a part-time job between several others (tree planting and roofing (tar&gravel, bletch)) being a fire watcher/spark chaser on a couple of huge (environmentally suspect) burn-piles in one of Van. Ils. logging shows. What a great job! Best pile was probably over 1,000sq ft and over 40ft high started with a couple of pooched skidder tires and a few gallons of diesel, man I wish I had some pics of it, talk about frikken awesome. I'd drive up in the afternoon and walk around it till morning with my pump can water sprayer until morning, selecting and pulling off stuff I could cut up later for my stove, drinking the occasional brew and yakkin' on the CB. When it finally started to kick on about the second day I had lots of company as you could see the smoke for many miles (looked like an atom bomb went off when the tires were burning) and people would drive out and party. That one burned for about 3 days and we didn't catch the woods on fire (tg). Really lousy pay, but I could take all the wood I wanted and did so for several years afterward Man I do love a good fire, *stares at hot dog in fryin'pan*


Small note: Keep the pics coming! But plz do try to resize them for us dial-up folks (Irfanview is a good free one for that and really easy to use), mind you I did vacume the place, do a load of laundry, cook breakfast, and split half a cord of wood while looking at them

 

[smokechase II]

Nuclear burn

Sprig:

Every once in awhile we used to set off the nuclear detection satellites with a prescribed burn. Over achievement of a sort.
This would be the westside environments of Washington, Oregon and Cal.

Posted here is an interesting fire and ice contrast. Sometimes in Eastern Oregon we'll burn landing piles that are only covered by a dry powder snow.
You may have to move a little snow aside, but they will burn.

 

[smokechase II]

sisters metolius stuff

Dr. Dave:

I work out of Bend and don't make it to many of the Sisters underburns.

Don't have a good answer for you other than Sisters has been doing some of the best and most important prescribed burning locally. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean they are keeping up with nature.

 

[Doctor Dave]

Dr. Dave:

I work out of Bend and don't make it to many of the Sisters underburns.

Don't have a good answer for you other than Sisters has been doing some of the best and most important prescribed burning locally. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean they are keeping up with nature.

I agree---great efforts there at getting the woods back into balance with a sustainable fuel loading (as in, when it burns, you don't get a crown fire). If only we could get going on the other 10? 40? million acres needing prescribed fire in the west...

 

[logbutcher]

Getting any Proposals---Like Marriage ??!!

.
But plz do try to resize them for us dial-up folks (Irfanview is a good free one for that and really easy to use), mind you I did vacume the place, do a load of laundry, cook breakfast, and split half a cord of wood while looking at them

Careful with all that talk about "...a load of laundry, cook breakfast, and split half a cord..." ....you'll get some serious marriage proposals from the lonelyhearts on board here :censored:
Can you sing, all together now, refrain : I am woman, hear me roar......
:jawdrop:

 

[Canyon Angler]

Those are some real nice pictures Smokechase. That looks like some beautiful country. I've only been to Oregon once - girlfriend and I drove up to Seattle along the coast and never went west of the Cascades. Are those pics from around the Cascades area?

 

[smokechase II]

near the Cascades

Photos were taken on the Deschutes National Forest which is on the east side of the Central Oregon Cascades.

This photo below shows the South Sister, perhaps the best of our local mountains, (over 10,000').

We cut down about 250 dead Lodgepole just behind me where this picture was taken. At a free campground called Soda Creek. This to get 3 commercial woodcutters 15 more cord apiece and clean up a campground, a trailhead and part of a road. Yea, I'm bragging, I do get to work in places like this.
Next spring I'll be in there with inmates and also YCC piling slash and what the campers don't burn I'll get to burn next fall.

Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, Richard Widmark and Sally Field took a wagon train through this meadow (much bigger than pictured) in the movie The Way West.

 

[smokechase II]

pile burning images

This is what a pile burning well looks like in a driving rain from the cab as you are leaving a unit.

Then an inmate crew photo on the way to work beside East Lake in Newberry Caldera. These guys work hard to be out of the big house. Note the ducks on the lake.

Then a photo of part of the inmate camp setting.

Then a couple more of winter burning.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Dr. Dave:

I work out of Bend and don't make it to many of the Sisters underburns.

Don't have a good answer for you other than Sisters has been doing some of the best and most important prescribed burning locally. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean they are keeping up with nature.

Do you know Joey Cornel? He contracted out of Bend, OR, til he descided he needed more money. Moved back home to Philly to do big tree work. Last I heard he was on a FEMA contract down in the Katrina area.

 

[bwalker]

Why burn slash? In my area its advantageous to leave slash as it helps return nutreiants to the soil and it also helps keep deer from browsing on all the new growth thats released after a cut. On some jobs they do spec a max height limit for slash.

 

[Ekka]

I cant answer for him but here they like to keep the floor fuel down coz of summer fire dangers. Even regular burn offs.

Also, dead pine might attract beetle and wasps etc which could jump into the trees if they're stressed. Not good.

Just my 0.02 but I aint a forester.