Beetle burning

Part of this job is doing controlled burns, both for the general health of the forest, and to destroy the pine bark beetle.  We started this job in August of last year, and since that time the weather has been consistently wet, and we have not been able to learn how to burn...until now.

Things have finally started to dry out, and G decided that we can start to do some of the burning maintenance jobs.  Last night, for our maiden voyage, we went out and burned five spots that had been cleared because they were infested with the pine bark beetle.  We took the afternoon off, and late in the day hooked up and filled the water trailer, and put all the fire setting and fire fighting equipment in the truck.  The guys had an early dinner, and around 5PM we set out for one of the larger beetle patches.  

We burn late in the day because we want the fire to be controllable, and late in the day the wind tends to die, the humidity goes up, and the temperature goes down.  Plus, when it gets dark, it is easier to see sparks that may blow out of the fire into surrounding areas.  Tom and I were the only ones not experienced with controlled burns, and the crew immediately started their jobs with some picking up fire starting torches, and others filling the water backpacks.  They spread out along the already cleared fire line, and started the fires.  They figured out where to start them based the breeze and the area that had been cleared, and very quickly had the area burning.  Everybody walked around until the fire had burned well towards the middle and there was very little chance of it jumping out of the planned burn area.

When the first fire was under control, we moved to a different beetle spot and burned that.  By this time it was completely dark, and it was easy to see which way the fire would head.  The second site was smaller, and it only took about 45 minutes to burn the area until the fire was contained.

The third, fourth, and fifth areas we burned were areas where Jose had pushed all the downed trees into windrows with the bulldozer in the middle of the cleared areas.  These were relatively easy burns, since we just had to light up the windrows and get them burning, and very little perimeter maintenance was needed.  We deemed the last one safe at around 9PM, and headed back to the farm.

The weather is still favorable for fires, so tonight we are going to do our first compartment burn.  The property is divided into 200-300 acre compartments, with compartment boundaries defined by either roads/fire lines or natural waterways.  Tonight's planned burn has roads on two sides, and a creek on the third.  It should be interesting...photos to follow!