Burning at night

I don't like night burns but sometimes they are necessary. Last night Kathie and I participated in a night burn at Madison Audubon's Goose Pond Sanctuary.

Yesterday had been so windy (gusts up to 25 mph) that a daytime burn authorization was not possible. 6 PM is a magic hour for Wisconsin Forestry, and "after 6" permits are generally possible even if daytime conditions are forbidding. The wind dies off and the humidity rises, making the burn inherently safer. Of course, you end up walking around in the dark, which provides its own challenge.

The area we burned was Ankenbrandt Prairie, a large planted prairie that borders US Highway 51. (Kathie and I had helped plant this prairie about ten years ago.) Because of smoke concerns across the highway, a north or northwest wind was necessary, so that the smoke would blow away from the road.

A large crew was involved in this burn, with a number of drip torches, two pumper units, and lots of water.

I drove a truck that had a large pumper unit, with a 100 gallon tank and a 150 foot hose. The pumper unit was used for "wetlining", which involves laying down a good line of water right next to the burn line. Although these planted prairies usually have wide mowed fire control lines, these lines are hardly what one would call "breaks", since they are quite grassy. The fire can easily creep across them if not prevented. Wetlining is the preferred way of keeping this from happening.

We filled the tank of the pumper unit completely to the top. In addition we brought along about 25 2 1/2 gallon water bottles. Some folks thought that we would never need this much water, but my experience is that you never know how much water you are going to need on a burn. These big pumper units use lots of water! As it turned out, we completely emptied the 100 gallon tank and ended up using almost all of the 2 1/2 gallon jugs as well.

The sun was still up when we started lighting, but by the time the prairie was well lighted it was pitch dark. Following standard practice, the periphery of the whole burn unit was completely blackened before the interior was lighted, since the best fire break is a wide blackened area (black line). Once this was done, interior lighting began, and to speed up the burn, long strips were lighted at right angles to the wind direction.

It was 7 PM before we were able to start lighting, and the whole burn was completed about 9 PM.

The view was spectacular, and we had lots of cars stopping on the highway to watch the fire spread.