It was the summer of 2009 and Lorraine and I had recently been to a grazing seminar. We belonged to an group of farmers that raise their animals on grass rather than grain (otherwise known as “grass farmers”) The focus of this particular seminar was on maximizing your pasture to feed your animals off of the pasture for as long as possible. There were several speakers throughout the seminar, but one that left an impression on us was the guy who talked about burning your pasture to reinvigorate growth and to manage problem species like endopyhyte infected fescue. He talked about a parcel of land in southern Iowa/northern Missouri that his group at Iowa State University was using for research. One component of that research was the use of controlled burning of sections of the land each year, rotating the burned portion at 1/3 each year. The key word here I now realize was “controlled.”
In the past I’d been hesitant to burn our pasture for a couple of reasons. The first was that it was so patchy and overgrazed when we bought it I seriously doubted that we’d have success in burning it. Why go out there and use up a bunch of propane having to burn most of it with a torch rather than having the wind gently push the fire through the pasture? In fact, a farmer that used to put cattle on our pastures to graze agreed with my assessment. This guy is a lot sharper about these things than I am so I took his word for it.
The second reason I was hesitant was that, if it burned better than I expected, could I control it? I didn’t want to be burning my neighbor’s grasslands unintentionally. I was OK to the south because that was bare crop land. The worst that would happen there would be the draws for drainage burning but those had dead ends that were edged by the crop land. No problem there. The northern edge of the burn area was a creek and marshy area. Even if it got out of control going north, that was a natural break that would stop the burn. On the other hand, the growth to the east and west was tall, dense and dry. If I wasn’t careful the fire might jump the breaks and get out of control.
After years of doubt, hesitation and trepidation I finally decided to buy an attachment to use with my grill’s propane tank that turned the unit into a pretty neat torch. My eleven year old son wanted to know if it was going be like a flame thrower he’d seen in the WW II movies. I explained that it wouldn’t be like that but, rather, more like an oversized lighter. I followed the instructions included with the torch and fired it up, recoiling initially at the intensity of the flame and quickly doused the flame on the end of my boot.
In preparation for the burn I’d used my tractor and brush mower to mow a perimeter on the east and west sides of the pasture to stop it from spreading in unintended directions. The wind was coming out of the southeast at, what I would find out fairly quickly, a rate that was a bit beyond brisk. I was chided later with the comment of, “gee, you didn’t know there was a wind advisory?” To that I lamely explained that, standing on the knoll where I intended to start the fire the wind was, I estimated, coming it at 10-15 miles an hour. Heck, it’s March and a lot of people burn in March and the wind rarely drops below this level. I had also learned from a previous effort in burning my roadside ditches in the front of the property that it’s next to impossible to burn effectively without a slight breeze. Unlike my pasture burn which only took about 30 seconds of propane to ignite my incendiary mayhem, the ditch burning took darn near a full tank of propane to get it all burned. That fully reaffirmed to me that if a little wind is good, more would be better. In retrospect I should have heeded my father’s well worn adage of “moderation in all things.”
There I stood with lit torch in hand in the southeast corner of my projected burn area. My theory was that the fire would start in that corner and move it’s way downwind. I relit the torch and applied the end to a nearby bunch of fescue and that’s when my theory collapsed in on itself. The fire rapidly moved in the anticipated direction while at the same time it moved in an unanticipated direction, that being northwest, directly into the teeth of the wind, albeit at a much slower rate. I enlisted one of my sons to help me stomp out the wayward wandering fire only to quickly realize that it was spreading more quickly than we could keep up with. Not only that, it rapidly crossed my mowed barrier. Within five minutes I knew that, if I couldn’t stop it from moving across the barrier into the wind, trying to stop in from crossing the barrier downwind was going to be futile.
Lorraine would later recount for me that, as she had just dropped Rachel off at a nearby park and ride. She noticed the smoke from the interstate which was just under a mile away from the fire. She wondered the fire might be and hoped it wasn't our house. When she got close enough they quickly realized that, although it wasn't our house, it was our property burning.
In the midst of trying to stop the fire from moving into the wind I saw another son come up over the hill where I’d positioned him to stop the fire from crossing in an area downwind that I couldn’t get the mower into. I yelled, asking him if he was going to be able to stop the fire and he yelled back that he could. I’d returned to my stomping efforts with my other son at the origin of the fire, only to quickly realize that our efforts would be futile. I followed along the fire line that was moving southeasterly, moving up over a slight rise. Coming over the crest of the rise I saw, to my horror, the raging fire had already crossed my western fence line and was racing down my neighbors east/west fence line with flames reaching at least ten feet in the air. With only brief hesitation and that hesitation resulting from the impending humiliation, I dialed 911 on my cell and shared the bad news with dispatch. About 2 minutes later I heard the local fire sirens going off in town to call the firemen to the station. As is probably typical in these stressful situations it seemed like an awfully long time before I heard the sirens of the trucks which are less than a five minute ride to our place. I’d called to the house to have my daughter wait at the end of the drive to direct them to the gate to get to the back of our property, but no fire trucks came. I then noticed that they’d stopped on the road in front of the second house to the west. I then saw some grass fire units come around from the southwest where they could drive up to within just a few feet of the rapidly spreading fire that was a 30 foot strip between a bare field and a pond. They got the hoses to the flames just as it was about to hit a much wider strip that would have been much harder to tame.
About the time the water truck was being deployed on the western edge of the fire another group of firemen came along with tools that look like mud flaps attached to the end of a shovel handle. They proceed to work the fire line and beat down the flames that, at the location, were moving slowly. Thoroughly embarrassed and humiliated I suggested to one of the firemen that they focus on the western edge of the flames by my neighbors and let the fire continue to move south to the creek line where it would die a natural death. Unfortunately, for me anyway, when you call the fire department they’re obligated to put the fire out.
It took a couple of hours but they eventually completed their task. During this whole affair, I had two llamas that were very interested in watching what was going on, including a pickup sized fire truck backing over one of their own which further added to the excitement. The rescue squad arrived, picked up their comrade and took her to the hospital where they confirmed she’d experienced only minor injuries. Apparently there was enough smoke that the driver didn’t see the fireman behind him and the fireman wasn’t paying attention to the back up alarm on the fire truck.
When the fire trucks finally departed just before dusk I assessed the damage. I’d intended to burn about 7 acres of my land. Had the fire department been able to let my land continue to burn that would have been accomplished. Instead, I managed to burn only three acres of my land and about that much of my neighbors, who shortly thereafter finished burning what I’d started. He’s apparently quite a bit smarter than me because he managed to burn what he wanted to and didn’t burn any of my pasture.
For those of you not familiar with Earlham, it’s a fairly small town and word gets around pretty quickly. I was dreading the upcoming Wednesday when the local paper would surely document the entire event. When the day came I purchased the newspaper and was quite relieved to learn that they referred to the address of the fire being where they first stopped two doors down the road. Also, my name wasn’t mentioned. Nobody would know the difference unless I or someone in my household mentioned it to someone else. And that’s exactly what happened. One of my daughters shared it with a friend, who shared it with more friends and parents, who shared it with even more friends and parents. You get the picture? So, it wasn’t too long until I was hearing, all too frequently, “so, I hear you had some excitement at your place this weekend” or something to that affect.
Now, here we are, two years later and I still have several acres that would benefit from burning. But I’m still very reluctant. Perhaps if I take my ZTR and mow a perimeter closer to the ground I can create a more effective fire break. And, maybe, if I pick a day where there isn’t a wind advisory I could actually control the fire.
