Prescribed burns spring 2025

[Deck78]

There wasn't enough fuel on the ground to carry a fire prior to the herbicide application. This area was heavily thinned 15-17 years ago. The previous group tried to create a "oak savannah" by thinning the trees, leaving several oaks per acre. But, they never ran fire through it or made any effort to maintain it. It grew up into a tangled mess with briars, almost impenetrable. It held no nutritional value and our turkeys couldn't move through it at all. We used a helicopter to apply aeriel herbicide to the 65 acres in the bottom of the hollows in the fall of 2021, then let it sit. With the back burn, the total fire was 160ish. We used our existing roads as our breaks. Our goal is to keep it in early successional by running fire through it every 2-3 years after seeing the response. I saw turkeys using it the same day we burned, and it is already starting to green up.....

Sounds like a path we are headed down. We have fuels on the ground, our logging was pines, but we haven't gotten all of our firebreaks done and have some areas the biologist said we will probably have to do some spraying before it's go time. Super cool stuff!

 

[BSK]

Sounds like a path we are headed down. We have fuels on the ground, our logging was pines, but we haven't gotten all of our firebreaks done and have some areas the biologist said we will probably have to do some spraying before it's go time. Super cool stuff!

I'm following Mule deer's process as well. I have about 30 acres of 4-year-old regrowth I want to kick back to year zero. I suspect we will aerially spray first, then maybe burn (fire breaks are going to be the problem). The question will be, when is the best time to spray, spring or fall?

 

[@fulldraw]

I'm following Mule deer's process as well. I have about 30 acres of 4-year-old regrowth I want to kick back to year zero. I suspect we will aerially spray first, then maybe burn (fire breaks are going to be the problem). The question will be, when is the best time to spray, spring or fall?

Spray late spring, early summer. Watch the weather and burn on a day with with relative low humidity during the summer after everything is dead. Not if it's been very dry though. That'll almost eliminate any spotting or burn over worries. If you do get a burn over it'll be easy to knock out and won't get away from you.

 

[Planking]

We stopped burning and went back to mowing just because we had a couple jump the burn lines and once it almost crossed the property line. I think our area is just too open and windy for that amount of fuel. Firefighting with a small crew is no fun. You can get good results from doing it though, just always need to be very careful.