Sometimes there needs to be fire - Part II What it takes to conduct a controlled burn
This is the second of two articles on controlled burns. The first article appeared in last week’s Chief.
CUSTER COUNTY - Last week’s article on controlled burns answered several question about burns in general. This week’s article provides more details on how burns are conducted and the planning that is required.
There are several groups of local residents who organize into crews for burns. Don Cantrell is part of a group in the Anselmo and Merna area. “They’ve been doing this for over 20 years,” he said. “There are quite a few groups around the county. Farmers and ranchers get together. There’s quite a few years of experience.”
Before a burn, there is a lot of preparation. In Cantrell’s experience, a landowner usually cuts and piles trees at least a year in advance. Asked if it can take up to two years to prepare, Lisa McMillan, Conservationist with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS) said, “Sometimes longer than that.”
There is a lot of work on cedar trees. For an NRCS burn, Millan said, “Cut trees are put in a pile and that pile has to be at least 300 feet inside the burn area or 200 feet outside. There can be no standing cedars within 150 feet.” She added that any trees two foot or taller have to be removed in the perimeter to make it as safe as possible.
Firebreaks must be planned and, if necessary, created by mowing or bull dozing. Fences must be prepared with gates and letdowns. If there aren’t already roads and pasture paths for vehicles, they must be created as well.
“With burns in these canyons, they always make sure they have an escape route,” Cantrell said. “We try to keep everybody safe so they can’t get trapped.”
The goal of a burn, McMillan said, is usually two fold - “To decrease invasive species and increase warm season forage grasses for grazing.” Although it’s native to Nebraska, the eastern Red Cedar is considered to be invasive. “The eastern Red Cedar is a prolific seed bearing tree,” McMillan said. “It will take over.”
Cantrell said Nebraska could see wildfires like those in California if it weren’t for controlled burns. “If we hadn’t been burning for the last 20 or 30 years, the amount of trees in this county would be mind boggling,” he said explaining that when fire reaches trees, it’s often uncontrollable. “You have to go to the other side of the trees and once the fire comes out on the prairie, you can control it,” he said.
Though a burn has potential for damage, it also has advantages. “It really rejuvenates the land,” Cantrell said. “It’s amazing the grass you get after a burn. It’s Mother Nature’s way of reinvigorating it.”
If a person thinks that once the fire is “out,” the burn is over, think again. “Mop up,” that is, the time that crew members must remain on scene after the burn is over, can last three days or longer.
The number of people on a crew for a burn varies in relation to the size of the burn area as well as the number of trees. Cantrell said a large burn can have as many as 75 people on site. A typical burn may have 30 to 50 crew members. The crews are entirely volunteer.
Before a burn, there is a meeting to cover safety. “Every body knows where they need to be and where the biggest danger spots are,” Cantrell said.
Back burns are utilized to stop the main burn from spreading. Each member of the crew has a specific responsibility, whether it be starting the fire with a torch, hauling water tanks or spotting or watching.
“People watch for embers, to make sure nothing flares up,” he said. “There are a lot of pickups. There are a few trucks and 4-wheelers with tanks of water. People bring extra tanks of water, 1,000 gallon tanks, so we have plenty of water.”
Cantrell calls himself a “newbie,” having “only 10 to 12 years” experience. “Typically, older crew members are not actually starting the fire or fighting it,” he said. “We’re usually watchers or spotters.”
Crew members stay in touch with each other via cell phones, though with canyons, reception is sometimes limited. He recounted a time on a burn when a fire jumped out of a canyon to a corn field. “There were two of us in a pickup and we made the call. About two minutes later, we looked into the distance and here comes the calvary, about a dozen vehicles, and they mashed it right down.”
As mentioned in last week’s article, McMillan said when her office is involved, burns are called “prescribed” because a specific prescription for conditions - wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity and temperature - is written. The burn cannot be held until those conditions are met. Final approval whether or not a burn is allowed is given by the landowner’s fire chief.
Timing is also a factor with tree pile burns which, for the record, also require fire chief approval.
“I try to teach people to not burn (tree piles) in snow,” McMillan said. Though many landowners think winter with snow on the ground is the best time to get rid of tree and brush piles, that’s not the case. “They start them in snow. A week or two goes by, the weather warms up and the snow melts. But the fire isn’t done,” she said. “It takes off the next time we have wind.”
With large tree piles, some embers can hide deep within large chucks of wood at the bottom of the pile. Recently a tree burn flared up two weeks after the initial burn. McMillan knows of one that flared up after three months. “I think that’s the record,” she said. “It took off and burned several acres.”
The optimal time for a tree pile burn, according to McMillan, is early summer (late June and early July.) “The green grass helps keep the burn from escaping,” she said. “If the fire creeps out to burn green grass, it has to first burn off the moisture. By that time, you see the smoke. It’s a lot slower fire and a lot more manageable.”
Despite the potential risk, with proper planning and preparation, burning is one way farmers and ranchers help the land produce to its full potential.
“It’s just a tremendous tool to maintain the land,” Cantrell said. “We learn every year and we get better at it. We just keep getting better.”