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Your (un)controlled burn story?

Boll Weevil

Boll Weevil

5 year old buck +
I thought maybe we could learn from each other...experiences whether our own or others can be a great teacher.

Burning a dried down brushpile in the middle of a completely disked field about 80 yards from the nearest trees; what could possibly go wrong? Everything's going great, we're just babysitting the burn, and I happen to see a dead snag on the edge of the timber that appears to be smoldering. I walk over there and sure enough about halfway up it was burning. A hot ember carried aloft must have stuck to that dried out snag and and lit it.

Grabbed the saw, felled it into the disked field, chunked it up, and dragged it away from the timber. Lesson learned that dry air, dry/dead wood, and enough wind to carry a hot ember can start a fire well away from a burn source. In this case having a saw to fell the tree was the remedy but if it would have kept burning unnoticed in the timber like that we could have had a problem.

Got any stories about the one that almost or did get away?
 
Had five acres of millet with 15 acres surrounding pasture on my land. I had bush hogged the millet a week or so before and was gonna burn for dove hunting. This is august. I already had 8’ good firelane around it. I was just out an about and thought i would light a little spot to see if it would burn and then stomp it out. I know. Lit it and let it burn about a ten inch circle and started stomping it. Ash blew over a foot away and I started trying to stomp it. Before I knew it, had a three or four foot circle burning. Had to run about fifty feet to get the ranger with a 25 gallon sprayer in the back. In 30 seconds - four ft of fire became a 20 ft circle. Couldnt get it out with the sprayer. Called my wife to bring tractor with full pto sprayer already attached and a couple of rakes. I used up my 25 gallon sprayer in the ten minutes it took for her to get there. Fire jumped the 8’ fire break like it was nothing. Burned the rest of the pasture and my neighbor’s pasture and stopped at a state highway. Had the wind been from the other direction - it would have burned down two houses. I have burned as part of my job for thirty some years and taken a bunch of controlled burning training. That was the last “controlled” fire I have ever started. I dont burn anything anymore and also got a sizeable umbrella liability policy. If i cant do it with a bush hog, herbicide, or a disk - I dont do it.
 
Knock on wood in my time on a prescribed burn crew as well as a landowner I have never lost one. Did burn up a power pole 3 years ago. Combo of poor prep work on my part, and a shitty pole that was all cracked and splintered so once it got inside there was nothing i could do about it.
 
Knock on wood is right...I hate to mention the dead snag has been the only close call for fear of cursing future burns.

KS, what’s your rule for firebreak width? We do no less than 3 times anticipated height of the flame. So if we’re burning a stand of pines with a low pine straw fuel load where flame height won’t reach a foot, a blown out break will be at least 3ft wide.
 
I have burned many, many times with good success. BUT...there was this one time...

Short version...I made three mistakes, one of which I didn't know at the time, the other two were on me, I did, or should have, known better.

My mistakes...#1. Burning when conditions were not "right". It was too dry and too windy, I knew it too, but having completed dozens of burns in previous times, I was overconfident in my control methods and foolishly went ahead with the burn. #2. Not good enough fire breaks - I knew that too, but again, I had gotten away with it before so I thought I could do it again. #3. Improperly placed fire breaks - this one, I did not realize...at the time...but now know.

Now, I just will not burn if it is too windy and/or too dry...just won't do it. Lesson learned. Fire breaks? All are wider now AND I will till them so they are BARE soil...no chaff left behind to smolder or stragglers to possibly allow a fire to creep past the break.

But the mistake I made that day that I did not realize at the time was that I had established fire breaks via mowing and had set some of them on low lying ground, at the base of a sloped hillside. When I set my backing fire into the wind it crept uphill, into the wind as one would expect, but once it crested the hill and the headwind was now in full force since the fire line was no longer protected by the lee side of the hill...a couple of embers "tornado'ed" up 20'+ in the air and then were carried downwind about 30 yards by the strong wind AND landed behind the fire break. CRAP! It was too windy and too dry and now there was a couple of embers on the wrong side of the break. POOF! Away it went and it didn't stop until it got to the neighbors yard. YIKES!

Thankfully, nothing of real value was in the path of that fire that day, but the "pucker factor" was at maximum levels as "my" fire moved towards my neighbor's house and land. His closely mowed yard stopped it well short of endangering his house, but still...it was not a good feeling watching that run away from me and not being able to stop it. I got lucky that way.

Fire is a great management tactic, BUT also potentially very destructive. I still burn, but only when it is "right" and when I have everything "ship shape" in advance.
 
Sphincter factor 12 on a scale of 1 to 10 for sure!

Didn’t panic but I recall thinking if I didn’t happen to see the smoldering and walk over to confirm or if I felled that tree wrong...would have torched a whole hillside. When I burn now, myself and the whole crew (all family) ask “what if the fire does this, what do I do?”

Everyone has a radio and a phone. If anything even halfway looks like it’s going sideways, say something and water is on the way.
 
We put a 100 or so fires that were under"control" every year some huge some small.Usually problem is caused by 1 of three things,too windy,too dry,or poor planning.I usually like to burn in late afternoon if humidity is rising.With computer forecast you can get a fairly good idea on hourly conditions but always have what I refer to as an oh crap plan.You can and will break something on your water right before you need it so I always have 2 sprayers,backup nozzles and hose connectors.I usually have 5 gal containers of water already sitting in areas that I might need to refill tanks at.I try to always have some dish soap to mix with water.I also like to mow in early march so area will green up sooner I also have an old hay rake so that I rake the mowed grass over into what I want burned and it makes a cleaner fire break.
 
Bare minimum is 1.5x the anticipated flame height. I like road width if possible. I love margin. Nothing ever goes to plan so it builds you in margin. However we have sprayed water under the rear duals of the truck and burned off it, and Ive also done the same with an atv tire only for the backing fire. Ill do the same in grass by lighting the fire and let it get some width then extinguishing the outside edge.

Couple times we came close. One was at Lake Merideth Nra. It was a massive burn like 12k acres. We had been blacklining the perimeter for a month. Big day came and everything was going great. Helicopter was dropping its pingpong balls filled with pottasium permagnate and injected with ethelyne glycol to light fire. They swing outside the line but the guy operating the machine didnt get it shut off. It was late in the day so it really just made a 30 ft diameter circle and was quickly caught by a contingency engine.

Burning at tallgrass prairie np and we had FUTA folks helping. I was the lead utv in a blacklining operation. One of the FUTA guys took too big a chunk as we were widing the line. I did some quick math in my head and didn't thing the black we had would hold. As it roared towards us the SxS died and seconds later my pump died. It was getting hot so I took off running. A Boise jumper was with me. I told him the fire could have my utv. He ended up getting it started and as the fire approached it sucked up our blackline fire and held.
 
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Two years ago I burned 160 acres. Watched it late into the night and everything looked good. The next morning I jumped in the truck and went back to make sure everything was still alright. To my surprise, a big old hollow hedge tree along the road had caught fire and was shooting sparks out the top like a giant sparkler. Of course the wind was going to blow it across on the neighbors. Thankfully, I had the chainsaw in the truck so I jumped out and in my t-shirt and slip on shoes and started cutting it down. Trying to cut a burning hedge tree out of a tangled hedge row is a recipe for disaster, and all I could imagine was what a horrible death it would be if the tree shifted and pinned me while it was burning. Ended up burning all the paint off the bar and having one messed up chain. Lots of lessons learned that day, with the first being to keep the fire out of old hedge rows! Also, always dress appropriately, even if you don't plan on fighting fire at the time.
 
I burned off a couple acres of cut corn field once after I had my switchgrass burn. I knew it was a "risk", but a low one as A- it was already harvested and B- it's MY field. So other than looking like an idiot no real harm done. I will say that even cut corn stubble burns hot! After that I started using my 3 point sprayer on my tractor as a "55 gallon fire truck". Trying to control the progress of the spread was difficult on foot as it was simply 100 to 200 yards long.....and I'm a fat guy! I typically burn when the biomass is dry but the ground is still pretty damp. I think this helps reduce the risk of actually damaging plants and of it spreading too much. A good bare soil break can be a big help as well in places of it's spread is a greater risk.
 
Jeeeez! A thread for True Confessions.
How fun.

Here's my dunderhead-story:
Wanted to burn off a little less than an acre of grass on the edge of my farm. Wind out of the east all day, would be raining sometime in the afternoon. Conditions so perfect I could do this by myself.

So it got lit.
And it got going good.
Then the wind switch to out of the west.
WTF!!!

And away it went across a small oak patch of mine...jumped the two-track and got into my neighbor's 12acre oak woods.
I couldn't controll it no matter how energetically ---and frantically----I tried.
That sucker was HOT up close.
So it raced through the accumulated oak leaves.

I had no choice but to pull out the cell and call the local fire department.
They came promptly with plenty of guys....it was their third grass fire of the day.

But .....but I had another dreaded call to make.
Had to make it.
Hated to make it.

So I sat on the tailgate of my truck and called my neighbor to inform him his woodlot was on fire and it was my fault.
I knew I would get a licking.
Deserved a licking.

He listened to my story. Asked if the fire department could control it....I said 'Yes', they were getting a handle on it.'
And then my amazing neighbor says over the phone "Good! That should make the patch better.....thanks for the call."

Sometimes the Angels kiss you when you don't deserve even a wink.
 
First off I'll start by saying I FULLY appreciate I've been CRAZY lucky to have fewer incidents than I have... I say this as my county allows burns up to 8' x 8' without permitting (barring red flag conditions) and I bet I do 2 or 3 paper trash and / or fallen limb burns per week.

Above said, I was burning limbs one weekend and asked my wife to keep an eye on the burn pile while I ran an errand into town (about 20 mins away)... get a call from her sounding MEGA panicked saying she noticed smoke away from the fire and one of our fields has a spot burning... trying to keep my wits about me I beg her to run check on the size and have her on the phone as she's racing around trying to put it out... first by foot which I quickly beg she stopped, then by big flat shovel. She's sounding so panicked I can't tell if she's fighting a 10' diameter fire or acres, and like others have said I'm not only worrying about her, but also neighbors' land, their homes, my home that sits in the middle of my acreage, etc... one of the toughest phone calls I've ever had as can tell she's panicked and doing her best.. but I just can't tell scope of the fire. Just as I tell her she needs to call the fire department, she says she thinks she's making progress. Having raced home, quick as I race out into my fields and while it didn't cover acres it did run across a swath about 75' yards wide and in an uneven pattern where you could tell she'd get it out in one spot but it would still be spreading in another direction. Bottom half of her pants were black from her fire fighting efforts and though fit enough to do a full marathon whenever she gets the urge, you could tell she was dead tired coming off a BAD adrenaline rush.

Other close call was shortly after we moved to our property and I decided to push together a stump pile that the previous owner had already made long before with several GINORMOUSLY round live oak trunks... didn't appreciate JUST HOW long it would take to burn such mass but it took MULTIPLE efforts over several weeks and one time about midway through burning them down I thought I put them fully out until the next burn and woke up only to look out and see reds embers and sparks flying around one of the bigger trunks. Grace of God that I saw it had re-lit as when I went to it, I had to put out some fires around the edges of my burn area that could have gotten MUCH worse in minutes.

Been MUCH more careful about picking my days carefully since having a few close calls, but still feel crazy lucky not to have had worse misfortune.
 
paleopoint said:
Jeeeez! A thread for True Confessions.
How fun.

Here's my dunderhead-story:
Wanted to burn off a little less than an acre of grass on the edge of my farm. Wind out of the east all day, would be raining sometime in the afternoon. Conditions so perfect I could do this by myself.

So it got lit.
And it got going good.
Then the wind switch to out of the west.
WTF!!!

And away it went across a small oak patch of mine...jumped the two-track and got into my neighbor's 12acre oak woods.
I couldn't controll it no matter how energetically ---and frantically----I tried.
That sucker was HOT up close.
So it raced through the accumulated oak leaves.

I had no choice but to pull out the cell and call the local fire department.
They came promptly with plenty of guys....it was their third grass fire of the day.

But .....but I had another dreaded call to make.
Had to make it.
Hated to make it.

So I sat on the tailgate of my truck and called my neighbor to inform him his woodlot was on fire and it was my fault.
I knew I would get a licking.
Deserved a licking.

He listened to my story. Asked if the fire department could control it....I said 'Yes', they were getting a handle on it.'
And then my amazing neighbor says over the phone "Good! That should make the patch better.....thanks for the call."

Sometimes the Angels kiss you when you don't deserve even a wink.
Click to expand...

While you definitely don't want a fire of yours going over on your neighbors...a controlled timber burn can be a very good thing. I have burned, on purpose, many acres of my timber in years past. Assuming you don't have any "snags" or brush piles to really conflagrate :), they are also easier to control than grass fires in my experience.

Fire breaks can be established with a leaf blower pretty easily and I also pre-walk the area to burn and use the leaf blower to clear chaff/leaves away from any dead trees that I don't want to ignite and brushpiles, etc, too. Easy peasy.
 
Mop up is key IMO. I won't leave one till I have a chain of good black around the edge. I have to feel 100% confident that the next few days the lines will hold.

3 years ago I helped a buddy burn. His family helped but I felt like I was herding cats. His wife's cousin was drinking and was useless. I ended up running with the torch, shielding my face, trying to beat the fire to the north line. I did. The next day was predicted red flag. I tied up the north flank since we were supposed to get a gusty south wind. I warned him stuff we couldn't get to burn that day would readily burn the next including his timber understory. I told him to go out first thing in the morning. He didn't believe me and putted around, went to church, and came back at 11 am. It was rocking in the timber. Him and his father in law messed with it all day. It didn't escape but he said his butthole was puckered.
 
We burned on Sunday with a small team of 6 and no dozer. We had 2 tractors with sprayers. The prescribe burner was one of the most experienced in our state and conditions were near perfect. We had a pretty good break around the 10 acres of clear-cut that was several years old. Broomsedge Bluestem and blackberries dominated with some young pines and hardwoods beginning to infiltrate.

We have a break running down the middle but it had grown up in broomsedge. We did not have a disk available so we just mowed the broomsedge and blew the cuttings off the break best we could. Our intent was to burn the northern most 5 acres now and then try a growing season burn next year on the other 5 acxres. The area was sort of isosceles triangle shaped. We had a gentle breeze from the SW. We started at the 90 degree corner in the NE and lit. We divided into two teams of three and just let the back fire go. Each team took one side of the triangle wetting and extinguishing any small areas of mowed broomsedge on the outside of the break. I think we went a little too slow. By the time we got around to the hypotenuse that was mostly mowed broomsedge, parts of the backing fire where getting too close. At one point, the backing fire made it across the middle of the break into the growing broomsedge. Given our equipment, it was too late to recover, so the burn coordinator made a quick decision to abandon the middle break and burn all 10 acres.

We had little excitement after that. We worked slowly up the outer break lighting a forward fire as the backing fire approached. After the fire went out, we make a couple passes around the break breaking up stumps and pushing any smoldering logs inside 20' of the break.

I went out and check it at sunset and there were no problem areas.

Lessons Learned:

1) We should have moved a bit faster lighting the backing fire so that we were on the other side of the break sooner and could more slowly have lit the forward fire dousing the mowed broomsedge as we went.

2) Don't count on mowed broomsedge as an effective break. It would works when doused with water from the sprayer right behind the drip torch guy. I would like to get a good heavy disk but funding won't allow it. Fortunately, my partner picked up an old one for free and we are trying to get that working for future break preparation. It is only a 3pt model and not as heavy as I would like, but if we get it working it should do the job. It just might mean more passes.

All in all, it was a successful burn. We will just adjust our plans for burning other bedding areas to keep bedding cover until the 10 acres can recover. The idea of burning 5 at a time was to set it back but to keep bedding cover in that location.

Only a small "uncontrolled" burn and the backup plan we executed was discussed before we started as a fall back plan.

Thanks,

Jack
 
The last "controlled fire" I was involved in didn't go quite as I had hoped. I am retired from the Sheriff's Office after a 40 year career. One afternoon, many years ago, when I was a new "young deputy", I responded to the scene of a grass fire and arrived prior to the Fire Department. Upon my arrival a rural homeowner, using a broom, was frantically attempting to stamp out a grass fire he had started in an attempt burn off a grass area adjacent to his lawn. He was frantic as he had lost control and he was attempting to save a line of 15 to 20 nice spruce trees along his driveway. I guess he was proud of these trees as he had planted them 15 years earlier and they had become a beautiful row trees.

Well, when I arrived, I immediately allayed his fears by assuring him that I had "been at many grass fires and that the fire won't hurt anything that is "green". He was immediately relieved and stood back with me awaiting the fire department. Much to my surprise, and chagrin, as the fire reached the line of spruce, and the pitch contained within, they exploded one by one each with a big "wooof" as the next one ignited right down the line. I thought to myself that they went up as if they had been sprayed with gasoline. Wow!... Wow!... Wow!... Wow!...............

I guess I wasn't quite as smart as I thought I was at the time. You can only imagine how quickly I excused myself from the scene and went back in service looking for the next citizen I could "serve and protect".
 
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