This past week, our fire department was asked to help burn off a field of cheat grass. The kicker of this request was the location...across the creek from our house! So, of course, we were two times interested. First, as members of the department. Second, as the residents of a house that would get the closest to the action. Since Anne has been officially put on light-duty (as in no drip torches allowed in her hands *sigh*), she had the emotionally challenging job of sitting on the deck with binoculars, the fire radio, camera and a Gourmet magazine she pretended to read. Two ice cream bars were consumed in desperation while waiting for the engines to start their job (so technically, if she got fatter this week, it is Fire God Ray's fault!)
In the pictures, you are watching an upper engine (Eric & co) and a lower engine (Ray) start burning strips to one another after laying down a good outer layer of "black." Cheat is considered a 12% moisture fuel, meaning that it only takes that percentage of moisture in the plant before it doesn't burn. However, once it starts burning, the consumption rate is right around 100%, meaning that it burns completely. Supposedly, flame length on this fuel averages roughly 12 ft...but if you look closely in the pictures and compare the height of people and engines to the flames, we were closer to 20 ft on the thicker parts of the field. Hopefully we can get the video portion to work for everyone. The video is showing the ridgeline across from the house. The radio traffic picks up in the last portion - so if you get bored, just fast forward midway through.
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