I was digging through our photo box Friday night, a little stroll down memory lane. I came across some photos of the CRP burns we did when we had 120 acres of switch. I don't have a scanner at home, so won't be able to post anything for a week, but then again, you weren't asking to see photos.
We were lucky to be bounded on three sides by gravel roads. The west edge wasn't gravel, but since the wind is usually from the west, we used that in our favor. We would get a group of about 10-12 people, more is better. We would start the fire on the down wind side (east) and when we thought we had enough of a fire break burned, we would run to the upwind side and light it. I would usually go out with a mower and mow a swath or two around areas we didn't want to burn, then use a hay rake to sweep the litter to the edge to be burned. We burned twice and never had to call the fire department. It came close once, though. We did call the county sherrif before burning so that they could contact the fire department and only come out if we called, instead of somebody driving by.
We will be burning off some riparian buffer areas this spring and it will most likely take two corn fields with it. I'm not too worried about that. I will disc a strip on the bean ground to stop it from running north.
How many acres do you have to burn? At $50-175 an acre, I bet I could get the old gang togethor!
