Chaparral Prescribed Burn

Cuba Burn, originally uploaded by craptastica.

Last week I was driving into work to spend another glorious Jemez day locked up behind my computer desk driving. As I pulled into the driveway, one of the fire guys began vigorously waving his hand at me. I rolled down the window, and John looked at me with a smirk and said, "you want to light some shit on fire today?" I had a few things to do, but after some back and forth I decided to go.

It's late November and the fire season is just about over, but until this weekend, things have still been warm during the daytime in the mountains. If there's good sunshine and a light wind, the fire will carry. By the time the sun begins flirting with the horizon at around 3:30 pm; however, the temperature takes a dive and the fire lays down.

It took us about a full hour and a half just to drive to the prescribed burn site. It was cold, but as the sun began to light up the pine-covered slopes the termperature warmed up to about 50 degrees.

We got there and Tom (the trainee burn boss) gave us a quick brief, handed John and I some fueled up drip torches, and told us to pick up some 'strips'. We joined about 5 others from the Cuba Ranger District, lined ourselves up about 30 feet apart (aka. a strip), and walked parallel up and down the mountain slopes spitting fire.

The fire burned suprisingly well. Even though there was so much tree cover that little sun hit the ground, and despite there was little grass cover to carry the flame, and regardless of the fact it was pretty damn chilly, things got burned.

The flames grew from the thin strips painted by our drip torches to a breathing orange and red blanket. It incinerated the young white firs and ponderosa pines that were recently sprouted from the soil, returning nutrients to the soils and opennes to the landscape. In some parts, whole trees even began to 'torch', sending white plumes of smoke into the air and crackling ominously in their death throws.

By 3:30 pm we had finished the area that had been designated for the burn. 44 acres. We hiked back to the truck, grabbed our lunch, and joined the others. The air quickly cooled and we donned our jackets to sit beside a giant downed pine tree that was burning vigorously. Lunch by the fire and then the long ride home.