Burning it all

Now that I had burnt the ditches on the east side, burnt a firebreak on most of the west side and most of the north side it was time to "Release the Krakken!"  The wind was from the right direction: south.  That meant I could start the fire on the southern boundary and "let it loose!"  I decided to burn all the hayfield and pastures at one time.  It has been quite a few years since I burnt everything, and even then I never had burned all of the hayfield.

The sky was mostly clear and the temperature was in the upper 50s.  The breeze was steady, but reasonable.  After Tuesday the forecast was again for scattered rain so it was burn now or wait and risk the grass starting to grow faster reducing the areas that would burn.

The breeze was actually south with a little easterly mixed in. I started on the SE part of the hayfield and worked my way west.  South of the hayfield the neighbor had tall dry grass in his pasture as he didn't have any horses last year to eat the grass down.  The fire wanted to burn against the wind and cross my fence line into his pasture but I burnt a fire line slowly and immediately put out any flames that wanted to cross the fence.

I was a third of the way across my south pasture fence when I had to switch from extending the fire line to protecting my piles of dead branches.  I hadn't hauled off all my dead branches from the trees that had fallen and I had de-limbed.  The wind was now more SE than south and the fire was moving from the hayfield into the pastures.

The hayfield south of my pasture had been cut a second time late last August so there wasn't much fuel for the fire to burn against the wind and into his hayfield.  So I was able to leave this fire line and go protect to my dead branch piles.

The fire wanted to burn into the dead branch piles but between burning a firebreak around some and beating the fire down as it moved around the other piles I was able to protect them.  I had four major piles to protect.

About the time I finished protecting the piles Tammy showed up.  Earlier I had heard fire truck sirens going up the highway to the east.  Tammy told me a fire truck had come and put out a fire in the field across the road from the ranch.  She came out to find me because of the fire siren and all the smoke from my burning. She initially saw fires everywhere but didn't see me.

By now the fire was moving across the hayfield, half of the south pasture and part of the middle pasture.  Lots of fire.  Tammy gave me grief about burning such a large area at once.  I had left a second rake outside for her to use if she came to work on the fire but she didn't bring it with her.  Even though I had protected the dead branch piles I had lots of trees in the pastures and I needed Tammy to help me watch that none of the trees that had sap outside the tree to the ground caught fire.

Then I went back to finish burning the fire line along the southern boundary.  Even though the fire wasn't burning into the neighbor's hayfield I wanted this fire line to be finished so I would have no chance of the fire getting away into the neighbor's hayfield.

Once that was done I turned my attention to the trees.   Some trees I had to rake grass away from, most trees were fine as the fire died out when it went under the tree's rain shadow.  A few trees were problems.  Three trees I had to throw dirt on the flames going up their trunks.

One fallen tree trunk that I left sitting on its dead branches to age and dry is now dry.  One end of the trunk reaches the ground and the fire worked its way to the trunk and it caught fire.  I put it out.

Tammy was in the east half of the middle pasture with a rake and was watching and tending to a fire there.  On the middle pasture fence with the hayfield I had an old rotting tree stump.  Actually ants had infested the stump so that is why the stump is not solid anymore.  Once I entered the middle pasture I looked over and flames were coming out of the top of the stump.

Because this stump was attached to the barb sire fence I wanted to keep it as part of the fence.  I ran over but it was too late.  The fire had gotten into the ants tunnels and the stump was on fire from within.  I pulled off the outer bark but it was pointless now to put the fire out.  I let it burn.

Here is how the stump looked after I was done burning everything.  The stump initially was a little taller than the barb wire fence.  A few days later the stump is a hole in the ground.  Time for me to update my count of stumps burned on my blog's sidebar.

Once I finished the fire where it had burned west where I hadn't burnt a fire break in the middle pasture , I returned to the middle of the middle pasture to find Tammy in the north pasture at another tree with its sap on fire. Even though she had been nearby she hadn't seen the fire on the tree until now.  She didn't know how to put the fire out.  The flames were about 12 feet high - the highest of any trees I've had catch on fire.  I furiously raked the ground to get dirt to throw on the tree.  I was able to put the fire out but it was close - if the flames had gotten any higher I would not have been able to thrown dirt high enough to put the flames out.

The tree that had caught fire is the second tall tree from the right.  As this tree is right next to several other trees it would not have been pretty if I hadn't put out the flames.

Tammy was bored watching the fire and wanted to go back in the house.  I had one area left to burn: between the north pasture fire break and the northern fence.  There were a half dozen trees in this area and I had to convince Tammy to stay out and help me burn this area.

Even though the neighbor's pasture to the north had putting green grass due to their livestock last year eating it down to nothing, the warm temperature combined with the wind wanted to drive the flames into this pasture in search of anything to burn.  So I switched to 'back burning' my area rather than letting a massive fire move across my area towards the neighbor's pasture.

Shortly after I began the back burn a weather front came through.  The sky clouded over, the humidity rose and the wind died.  Now nothing wanted to burn and we had to coax the fire along to get it to stay burning.  Argh!     Couldn't have the weather front waited another half hour before arriving?!

This last area had a large number of yarrow weeds so I really wanted it to burn.  The yarrow had taken over  a large area stunting the grass so there wasn't much fuel for burning.  While I sprayed the yarrow with herbicide last year to kill it, the time was late and the yarrow still formed seed heads.  It appears yarrow is another one of those plants that will still put its energy into producing seeds even as it is dieing.

The yarrow is a tall thin stem with a seed head on top.  While it can burn it takes longer to ignite than grass.  If the fire is not intense and hot the fire would move through the yarrow and not burn some of it as the fire moved on before the stem could catch fire.  Without the sun and wind I burnt the best I could and got much of the area burned.

Here are photos of an area of a heavy yarrow infestation.  The second photo show yarrow that escaped the fire.  It is to the right of center.

So I am done burning.  Due to whatever reasons there are patches here and there that did not burn.  I will leave them be.  None of these patches are weed infested, which was my main reason to burn the pasture.

Once I was done burning I walked the whole pasture to make sure I didn't miss any fires.  I found a second stump had caught fire.  This time I was pleased as this rotted stump was on my list of stumps to eventually burn.

I found another dead stump right next to a live tree was smoldering and trying to catch fire. Another ant infested stump. I was able to pull off the smoldering pieces (lower right in the photo).

The horse left large piles of manure.   The manure has not totally dried so much of the horse manure did not burn.

Before and after I knocked apart an unburnt pile of horse manure.

Here are some areas I burned in the south pasture.