Thumbnail photo by Ethan Caudill-DeRego.
Flecked with dirt and soaked in sweat from the intense heat of fires burning all around, crew from the Del Norte Fire Safe Council and interested participants worked away with their drip torches, burning pre-collected debris piles on the hills overlooking Rock Creek Ranch.
March 5th was the first day of the Del Norte Fire Safe Council’s two day Prescribed Burn Workshop. This workshop helps teach local residents how to deal with the vegetation that builds up on their land and poses a threat during wildfires.
“This is our first workshop. It’s more about pile burning because that’s the time of year that we have right now,” said Aaron Babcock, Del Norte Fire Safe Council Coordinator. “It’s still pretty wet to do an actual real prescribed burn, but we’re hoping in April we’re gonna do another real workshop, where we’re gonna try to get some fire to carry.”
Despite their similarities, pile burning and prescribed burns are quite different. Julianna Olate, owner of Ship Mtn. Ranch in Low Divide, explained, “A prescribed burn is where you burn the forest floor, and it’s a slow creeping burn that takes out a lot of lying down stuff, and keeps the fuels lower than they would be if you didn’t do it. Preparation has to happen first before the forest floor burns so that it doesn’t get out of control.”
Photos by Ethan Caudill-DeRego
Among the pickaxes, mattocks, and other tools you’d typically see in forestry, one specifically stood out: the drip torch. As Babcock describes, “It’s basically a big metal can, with a metal nozzle at the end. You mix it with 3 parts diesel, one part gas, and it’s basically just a really big lighter, and it pours fuel out, and you can put it into the piles.”
Fuel mixture is probably one of the most important parts of the drip torch’s functionality. A mixture of too much diesel isn’t very flammable, and one with too much gasoline could cause an explosion. Sometimes two stroke fuel is also used in prescription burning, which is referred to as “sticky fuel.” With steep fuel prices, some of the fuel used in prescription burns is actually donated from local mariners whose fuel tanks took on water. The wet fuel may damage a combustion engine, but is still plenty flammable and usable in the drip torch.
Another critical part of prescribed burns is the weather. Crews regularly use sensors to check wind speed and relative humidity to get a heads up on potential weather changes. A shift in wind or increase in humidity could make the piles burn faster or slower than needed.
“Any day that we’re burning the objective is not to kill the trees surrounding it, the objective is just to burn the fuel on the ground. So on a really dry day, or a hot day, we might burn the piles a lot slower so that we don’t create too much heat that kills the trees we are trying to save. On a wetter day like today, we can be a little quicker with lighting them, but then again it takes a lot longer to light,” Babcock explained.
Photos by Ethan Caudill-DeRego
Permitting can also pose another challenge. According to Jeff Stackhouse, a state certified burn boss participating in the workshop, “Some of the challenges around the actual burning itself are regulatory challenges. We struggle a little bit with getting air quality permits for our burns. We generate a lot of smoke, and it’s their job to make sure that we’re not smoking out hospitals, or schools, or communities. So, oftentimes they’ll tell us that we can’t burn on some days where the weather conditions are good for burning, but bad for smoke. So that’s pretty common.”
Whether there to learn, teach, or aid in the community, participants at the burn workshop were in good spirits. Getting to be outside and light stuff on fire all for the greater good…what’s not to love?
“I enjoy every aspect of it, helping at-risk homes, and communities, and especially elderly people that can’t exactly get out and do the home hardening and fuel reduction work on their own properties,” shared Brad Wendt, the Fire Council’s crew lead for 3 years. “Putting good fire on the ground is important.”
If you are interested in joining in on one of these workshops, the next one is April 25th-27th at Rock Creek Ranch. More information about the Del Norte Fire Safe Council, volunteer options, and future burn workshops can be found at www.delnortefsc.org.
