"Whitetail Hollow" - 90 Acres NE Oklahoma.

The OK protocol is to call sheriff's office and state (district office) forestry in advance.....call them when you start and when you end....I also call forestry the week before.....they should dispatch local VFD and screen calls from neighbors reporting fire. Schedule alternate dates when help is available....need 3 days of static wind conditions ideally. Need some type of communication...radios preferable...phones may lose service. Should work out just fine on 6 ac....have snacks and water available for crew then buy their dinner when done! Helps to have a PTO tank and spray wand on tractor as a backup.

Start at SE corner....two ignition crews going opposite way...take time igniting each side allowing fire to carry and create a nice black out area and edge burn out before advancing to next side. You actually need decent wind speed to move air 0-3' off forest floor when fire is in a fully timbered unit.....most of the wind shears above timber canopy thus less is available to carry fire at ground zero. The road on upwind side and perpendicular to wind flow.....watch out for eddies and fire devils there jumping the road. It is usually harder to carry fire in leaf clutter than grass because leaves hold humidity much longer....grass can burn well at 55% humidity but leaves need 40% or less. Cut and remove volatile fuels (cedars >6', trellised greenbrier, large slash, and dead snags over 10' tall) within 20 yrds of upwind and flank breaks...and within 50 yards of downwind side....that markedly reduces the chance of ember and fire brand escapes over the break and fire generated variable wind on the edge. Terrain redirects wind flow so know how a NW wind will flow on all sides of the unit. My guess is that your best leaf and woody fuel burn conditions will occur starting around noon to 1....deteriorating before 4 PM with poor carry before 11 AM. Use the mesonet fire prescription planner as a tentative guide.....then do small area test burns to confirm fire carry rate and actual start time.

First time timber burns usually go fairly smooth but slow with a common risk being a large log/stump next to break left smoldering then leading to a fire escape when wind changes several days later...or downwind side was lit too early and fire carry was spotty leaving unburned fuel which can rekindle mid-afternoon. Plan ahead to avoid having issues and always remember fire creates in own wind based on it's intensity....the whole thing can change in a heartbeat...experience is a great teacher! The goal for a safe fire should be to burn the whole unit fuel load in a smooth pass while conditions are favorable then have it naturally extinguish when conditions wane in the evening....check on it the next morning and either extinguish smoldering debris or move well off of break..

Doug, can you tell me what this means for my burn planned for Sunday?

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Good luck with the burn. I'm gone this weekend but happy to help and take orders well if you ever need another body.

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Some pics of the burn today...

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Good thing we had a little wind or I don't know if we would have gotten it burned. It really didn't want to burn even though we haven't had a rain in quite awhile...


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We are not familiar with the burning process except in books. It looks so bare now burnt. Will it now sprout a bunch of new growth?
 
We are not familiar with the burning process except in books. It looks so bare now burnt. Will it now sprout a bunch of new growth?
Burning the leaves helps the soil by letting the ash be incorporated. Also leaves are allopathic so removing the leaves allows the seed bank to put forth New growth. When the dozer comes about an acre of this burn unit will be be turned into the south plot expansion and most of the rest will be hinged or clear cut only leaving the bigger oaks. Blank slate kind of stuff...
 
The second to the last picture has as great an example of a spring pole as exists. Love seeing your hinge cutting Okie. You are eons ahead of me on it. Great job and excellent pictures!
And thanks for the burning explanation, I had never thought of leaves as holding back new growth but now that you pointed it out to me--yes it does.

In fact I use yards and yards of leaves in my daylily beds;the daylilies come up through the leaves but most newly germinated plants do not.
 
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