Partial burn

I was so excited...finally, a prescribed burn taking place on a non-school-day!  Saturday was a bizarrely warm and stunning November day, and I was invited to join the burn crew at Gensburg-Markham Prairie.  It should have been quick and straightforward--a rectangular burn unit, simple ring fire, steady southwesterly winds.  Usually burn season takes place in the chilly part of the year, so that you are shivering in your Nomex jumpsuits before the fire gets going, but that day we were all comfortable in a single layer.  Here is my "Before" shot, taken from the northeast corner, with the intention to take an "After" shot from the same location.  It did not happen that way.  Looked like a lovely day, no?

 

This is the beginning of the back fire, lit at the same northeast corner.  For the uninitiated, you let the fire fight back slowly against the wind, keeping the mowed fire break hosed down along the downwind side, to keep the fire from burning out of your control.


 

My half of the crew crept slowly along the eastern edge of the burn unit...a surprisingly painstaking process.  The fire desperately wants to swallow up the fire-loving bluejoint grass, but the opposing wind keeps it in check.

 

 The fire inches its way inward, widening the fuel-less safe zone.  Interesting skies we have there to the west.

 

A close-up of the flames.  They're mesmerizing.  Occasionally the wind would die down, allowing the fire to roar up and consume the grassy fuel.  

 

Huge water tanks, backpack sprayers, and flappers stand ready to smite any stray embers.

 

The skies become increasingly ominous as the blackened strip widens.

 

The first raindrops from the thunderstorm (unpredicted by any of the forecasts) started to fall when we were almost ready to make the turn to the south end of the unit, where we would have set the head fire that would race northward with the wind, gobbling up the grasses until it met up with the blackened strip, extinguishing itself for lack of fuel.  The grass became too wet to burn, the flames petering out as soon as the drip torch dripped them out.  We had to put the kibosh on the burn, doubling back to snuff out the dying flames.  The line of thunderstorms hit us right after that:

 

Such a bummer!  I've dealt with snowflakes during a burn, but being rained out is a new thing.  I'm not usually too quick to blame global climate change for weird weather...one day of weird weather goes down as an anomaly in my book.  It drives me nuts when a cold snap brings out the global warming deniers, or a heat wave sends everyone into a frenzy.  But there's been an awful lot of weird stuff lately, perhaps too much to be considered anomalies.

But never fear...even though we had to abort our mission, the prairie will get burned eventually.  All they need is a few days to dry out, a clear day, and another southwesterly wind.  The hard part has already been done--all they need to do is set the head fire screaming across the prairie.

[Side note:  It has been brought to my attention that perhaps people are commenting on these entries; as far as I can see, there are none.  So forgive me if I do not reply--technical errors may be occurring.]