Burning the Fence Line

Burning the fence line is an old tradition...sort of like burning the field before the growing season starts.  It is a symbol of preparing for the summer.  It signifies to the owner and to those who drive by that this property is ready.  We have seen lots of people burning their fields and fence lines, scortching the dry stubble and duff black. 

They, like us, watch the weather and the wind when they burn.  We look for the perfect day when the wind will carry the fire in the direction we want it to go.  We look for a day when the weather will hold dry during the light and then cloud over (and even rain) in the dark.  Sometimes, if you time it just right, you can light one side of the field and the wind will push the flames across the property in smoking waves - catching nearly all of the dead grass in its wake.  Sometimes, you spend the entire day re-igniting crest after crest of dry grass and watch as it travels a few feet and disappears.

Yesterday, J decided to burn the remainder of the southern fence line...well, actually, he asked me if I would like to burn the remainder of the southern fence line.  I hesitated, but he reminded me that we had a plow line on one side of the fence and the paved road on the other - two natural fire breaks.  Of course, my hesitation was warranted.  Let me explain...

I have an uncanny knack for starting fires.  Even though I went through fire academy like all of the other firefighters, my education in stopping fires from burning hasn't hampered my ability to burn.  When we lived in the coast range and were burning slash piles, J could spend days trying to start a pile.  He would throw all sorts of flammable things in them to get the pile going - tires, gasoline, boots full of diesel - to no avail.  When he was finished trying, I would go out with a piece of paper and a match.  I would light the match, light the paper, and light the pile.  In fact, I was so good at it, there were a couple of times that the fire got bigger than planned and the fire department was called.  I always had it well under control - but that didn't save me from getting in trouble.

So, when J asked me to burn the fence line, I hesitated.  And after his insistence on the safety level, I agreed.  In my defense, I did tell him that I would probably burn the whole place down.

It was going just fine.  I was driving down the side of the road in the golf cart with the propane torch.  I would drive slowly and fire up the torch at the base of the fence.  Occasionally, I would catch a tumbleweed or a bit of sage, but mostly it was just the twenty years of duff sitting under the juniper trees.  There were a couple of limbs that were sagging (either old or broken) and caught fire in a poof of flames and smoke, but they didn't climb the trees.  No ladder fuel here.

Unfortunately, we didn't need a ladder fuel to reach the trees.  Although I avoided tree bases and fence posts, the duff allowed the fire to crawl quietly around everything.  Soon enough I had coals eating away the bottoms of the fence and smoke licking the ring of bark at the bottoms of the trees.  And then, I noticed that several trees had smoke coming out of them at three and four feet off the ground.  You see, when juniper trees die, they often rot from the inside out leaving a hollow space through the trunk.  The fire had seen a familiar face - a chimney - in those rotting trees and decided to make itself at home.

I drove back up to J and told him what was happening.  He and I went back with the backpack sprayer and drenched much of the smoldering trees.  We did this several times...each time soaking the inside of the trees.  Several of the "chimneys" went out.  But there was one that just didn't want to stop burning.  J went back down and vented the tree by cutting a hole in the center to allow the flame out and not up.  We would've just cut the tree down, but it runs under powerlines and is technically on the easement.

In between waterings, the phone company showed up.  Did I mention that some of the duff had burned around a phone box?  J had doused it quite well, but it was hot enough to melt the phone lines inside.  Lucky for us, the phone guys were old friends of ours.  A few weeks back they had spent the better part of a day with us moving our phone line into a conduit J installed.  They thanked us for finding a previously unknown phone box and noted that it just might solve all of their service calls in this area.  Phew.  We were off the hook.

This morning we awoke to the neighbor knocking on our door at 5:45am.  The fire department had knocked on her door and she was passing it on.  Apparently, the chimney tree had not gone out over night and someone had called it in this morning.  J went down (he's better at talking with fire guys than I am) and talked with the crew.  He explained to them what was going on.  Their first question was if we had an ag permit.  Uh, no.  We didn't know we needed one.  They explained that it was obvious we had done all that we could to make sure this didn't happen and that an ag permit would not have kept this problem from happening...but they did let us know that it's something we're "supposed" to have.

They talked about how some of the trees obviously needed to come down.  J explained that the county wouldn't remove them and that we weren't allowed to.  The captain told him that they would cut it down.  J offered to go get the crane truck and chain saw to help.  They agreed.  He brought the crane truck down, attached it to the tree (just to make sure that it wouldn't hit any lines) and then limbed and fell the tree.  The firefighters helped swamp out the limbs and make a nice burn pile.  About that time, the county showed up.  They offered to chip the wood, but J told them that he'd rather take the logs up for firewood and would just burn the rest in a brush pile.  I'm sure they were thrilled to hear about that.

Moral of this story?  Don't let your wife (a known pyromancer) burn the fence line...even if it's supposed to snow that night.