Big savanna burn

"The secret to all prescribed burning is to let the weather work for you. When all environmental factors are right the job is easy." (Wright and Bailey, Fire Ecology.)

This statement was really true yesterday (April 8, 2009) when we did a large savanna burn at Pleasant Valley Conservancy. We did the largest savanna burn we have ever done, and the most successful. The burn was 30 acres (per ArcGIS) and included almost all of our white oak and bur oak savannas.

We had a great crew of 12 people, all of whom were experienced and worked hard. The photo below shows the test fire at the start of the burn.



The weather was on the cool side (45-50 F) but the humidity was low (35-45%) and the wind was out of the northwest, a bit gusty but generally less that 8 mph. We had had a wet snow 5 days before, but the cold front that followed brought lots of sun and strong dry winds which really cured the fuel. Most of the fuel was oak leaves except for about 8 more open acres that were tallgrass savanna.

As the photo below shows, the fire carried well.


And the photo below shows that the coverage was essentially 100%.



After we finished the big savanna burn, we burned a 3 acre oak woods that had not been burned for 4 years. It also burned well, although there was a fair amount of downed wood and dead snags that despite our fire-proofing gave us problems on mop-up. (Kathie stayed until 11 PM dousing glowing logs and snags.)

We finished the day by burning a small planted prairie (the Barn Prairie).

With the three major burns we have done this spring, we are reaching the end of our planned burns, although we still have one small planted prairie and two wooded areas yet to burn.