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February 2, 2006 -- The day of the burn
7:00 a.m.
I arrive at the Maryland/DC chapter’s office in Bethesda to carpool with Caroline Raisler, the chapter’s conservation steward. The roughly two-and-a-half hour drive takes us over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and past the rural farm fields along Route 50.
The Maryland/DC chapter’s stewardship staff and volunteers worked for months to prepare for the burn. They created fire lines to keep the fire from crossing outside of the burn unit—the area where the fire will be contained. Some loblollies were removed to make room for native tree regeneration. Volunteers helped to pull down greenbrier—a common Eastern Shore plant with big, sharp thorns. The greenbrier is especially flammable and grows up into trees, so it was removed from within 20 feet of the burn unit’s perimeter.
8:30 a.m.
Before we pass over the Bay Bridge, we stop at a gas station to pick up Deborah Barber, the Maryland/DC chapter’s director of land management and volunteer programs. Deborah tells me that today’s burn is intended to help restore native hardwoods to the site. Loblolly, she says, was probably not a native species this far north on the Eastern Shore. As typically happens with the removal of loblolly pine, nonnative invasive species creep in. The fire also will help to quell the return of Japanese honeysuckle.
9:30 a.m.
We arrive on site and unload our gear. Waiting for us are Maryland Department of Natural Resources biologist Wesley Knapp and the department’s volunteer coordinator Paula Becker. Wayne Tyndall, a state restoration ecologist, also has joined today’s burn crew. Deborah Landau, the Maryland/DC chapter’s conservation ecologist, is eagerly awaiting our arrival and she introduces us all to George Gress, the Conservancy’s fire expert out of Pennsylvania and our “burn boss” for the day.
George and Paula discuss tracking the weather and fire behavior. Paula agrees to be “weather girl” for the day—tracking temperature, relative humidity, dew point, wind direction, wind gusts and wind speed. She’s to record it hourly on a spreadsheet and to also call temperature, wind speed and relative humidity over the radio hourly.
We don our fire-resistant Nomex suits. The fire team also wears helmets, which have mouth and neck covers and transparent face masks. They spread out bladder bags that are filled with water. Several crew members will wear those on their backs. Wayne and Caroline begin to fill the drip torches, metal canisters filled with a mixture of diesel and gas, used to ignite the flames.
Deborah B. and Wesley begin to rake leaves outside the fire line between point E and F of the burn unit. Each corner of the burn unit is marked with a letter for the team to refer to when calling out to each other over their radios. While they rake, Deborah L. revs up a chain saw to do some last-minute trimming of stumps along the fire line, so we don’t pop the tires of the Gator, which is also carrying a tank of water.
Next: The Briefing and Burn!
For more about prescribed burns:
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Global Fire Initiative
The Global Fire Initiative develops solutions that allow fire to play a role in places where it benefits nature, and keep fire out of places where it is destructive
