Smokin' HOT

From 9/8/04:

I got to burn stuff today. ;)

We went over the burn plan - two units, 7 people. I was assigned to the engine while two other people used drip torches to light. The first unit didn’t burn great, except for some 15-20’ flames on the tall grass. My main job was to hang out in the engine and watch for spot fires.

Then they handed me a drip torch. Heh heh heh.

The way a drip torch works is that you light the end of the torch, and when you tip it over, the diesel/gas mix sends out a stream of fire. Looks simple enough. I walked around with it, lighting some grass and occasionally some greasewood that burned pretty hot. It’s kindof strange surrounding yourself voluntarily with fire! At first, it was no big deal. But with the temps already in the upper 80s, the heat from the fire, the weight of my pack and the blazing desert sun, it is definitely tougher than it looks!

Once we finished that up, we were going to burn another unit to make 300 acres total for the day - but after we spun the weather, we realized we were out of prescription - too hot, relative humidity too low - and we had to sit and wait it out to see if we could do it later. In the meantime, we had a few duck blinds to protect. They handed me a drip torch and I set fire to the grass surrounding it. It still was weird spreading fire around yourself but fun nonetheless. I put some fire to the ground… and it burned fast and hot! I was a little surprised at just how quickly it burned, and it became incredibly hot. My eyes burned and my ear felt like it was burning, the hot and smoky air hit my face. But we got a good black line around each blind and I got to play with fire, so everybody was happy.

Once again, we spun the weather to see if we were ok on humidity… not quite, so we waited until we finally reached our magic number and we were good to go!

This is when it got a little tricky. The grass was taller and more continuous and promised to burn better than our scrubby area. One break was an incomplete plow line; we had to use the engine to keep the fire from getting outside the unit. Not much incident there; a few shots with the hose and we were all set. As they continued, they ran into more flammable phragmites, which went up quickly and threw a lot of embers - flames 20-25’ at times, too! It looked wicked cool, and as they lit perimeter of the unit, the fire sucked in towards the middle, sending the smoke in and up as a big bellowing column. White, gray, black smoke, short flames and sudden flare-ups… it made for a good show. :)

Nathan and I were in the engine, watching the smoke get sucked away from the road… and then suddenly it was headed right in our direction. No problem at first, but the fire intensity increased and so did the smoke. Nate touched the windshield to see how warm the truck was getting… warm but not hot. No problem there yet, but we couldn’t see the road or even the sun for that matter. Daylight faded and only an ambient glow from the flames and the now-hidden sun illuminated the sky. We couldn’t move because we couldn’t even see 2 feet in front of the engine. We weren’t in danger from the flames, but the smoke was just engulfing us. For a while, the AC still pumped out fresh air, but our eyes started watering and our lungs burned as smoke whisps began appearing in the cab. We did our best to stay out of the worst smoke but for a while, we were red-eyed and coughing!

Our truck was parked behind the progress of the drip torches, perched upon a narrow 2-track road that sat above the wetlands on either side. It was either forward or backard, and forward wasn’t much of an option while the flames licked over the road. We couldn’t see, but suddenly we got a call on the radio - a fire started across the line in some tall grass, and we needed to catch it NOW or we might not stop it at all!

Nate drove into the nearly impenetrable smoke barricade and told me to be ready to jump out and grab the hose. It was hot and smoky and I could hardly keep my eyes open, but we jumped out and hit the quickly spreading flames with water. Tall flames burned on both sides and we moved fast to stop a little problem from becoming a big problem - exhilarating and crazy!

This happened once more, but we did catch it, in part thanks to Ben’s crazy-man attack on the spot fire. It was a good time.

As I took my hair down from a long day’s work, I realize - somehow, somewhere - I had singed my hair, which had been up in a bun! No doubt about it, I was playing in fire!

Tomorrow, we’ll do it all again!