Never give up

[JSanders]

About three weeks ago, I let a burn pile get out of hand. I had a pretty good size pile of trash trees (chinese tallow and chinaberry) we'd cut over the previous month, set it to burn and in short, it got away from the burn pile by burning dead grass under the green growth of grass.

Anyways... it got smoldered across to an area I had planted in loblolly pines last winter. That area had also subsequently been sprayed to kill the vegetation and briars. It was drier than I thought. After many years of burning and watching and being observant, I had a good hard reminder of what can happen.
It burned about 3.5 acres of the planted pines, and along with that I lost only 3-4 edge plantings of chestnuts and crabapple I had planted and tubed. I was lucky, very very lucky, we got control of it before it hit some 15 yo pines very nearby.

So, the day after the burn, I pulled the melted plantra tubes from the chestnuts and took the melted tubes to the trash. Last weekend, I returned to look around and found two of the chestnuts had re-sprouted and appear to be making a small comeback for me.

 

[JSanders]

And a partial shot of the burned area. You can see under the tire tracks where the fire smoldered across the path from the burn pile on the left to the where it got out of hand on the right.

 

[j-bird]

I had a burn get away once and I burned off about 5 acres of cut corn field....talk about HOT! No damage, just some wounded pride. My wife had a small trash fire get away from here.....it resulted in the volunteer firefighters to come out and she melted some plastic siding on my garage.....the garage that I stored my tractor and GTO in:eek:!!!! I was not happy! i had a neighbor that caught his woods on fire once and in a few years the area was the thickest place around! Fire is only bad when it doesn't do what we want. Glad to see some of your trees are trying to pull thru for you.

 

[bueller]

Those of us up north have the luxury of burning large brush piles during the winter with a snow covered safety blanket, when it's below zero outside :cool:

 

[MoBuckChaser]

Last march i burned our 21 acre Crp Field. Just me and a buddy. I keep a 12' path mowed and green around the CRP as a buffer. And since we have burned it in recent years without problems, we lit it up. First back burned about 20' into the wind and then went to the other side and started burning with the wind. It was dead calm when we started burning but as soon as it got going the wind picked up and It took off way faster than normal. Then it started creating its own fire tornado that was throwing burning embers way up in the air. A bunch started landing on the neighbors CRP and sure as hell started that on fire in a few spots, and he has 400 acres. We jumped the fence line with our 4 wheeler and 25 gal sprayer and started putting out the spots. I got so lucky it was a dewy night that night or it could have burned a square mile before it hit roads. That fire scared the piss out of me. I will now burn our CRP in smaller sections and have way more help next time!

Glad you got your fire out with minimal damage!

 

[j-bird]

Those of us up north have the luxury of burning large brush piles during the winter with a snow covered safety blanket, when it's below zero outside :cool:

Pansies like me stay in the house when it's below zero outside.....snow or not! Oh wait, if you WI and MN boys did that you would stay in the house half the year!!!!:D