Not Skip
. But I have run fire through parts of my timber more than once, with good success and results. I have NOT though tried it in areas where I have done a lot of hinge cutting, as I don't want to burn up all of the horizontal residue from the hinging activity. If you wait for the right conditions, fire is easily managed in a timber setting...but here are a couple of key "to-do's" in advance...
I walk through the area to be burned and use a leaf blower to create a little, even just 6"-12" will do it, bare earth barrier around certain trees. A timber fire will normally burn low to the ground and relatively cool as compared to a grass fed fire. It will not be as prone to "jumping" a fire break and/or catching everything in its' path on fire as will a grass fueled fire. So it is fairly easily controlled by just a small "earth" barrier/fire break.
I will look for larger, dead trees and blow the leaves away from the base so as not to catch those on fire. A large, dead tree that does catch, and a lot of them are hollow, will burn for a long time, even days, as the hollow zone will function as a "chimney". Even though I may be OK with a certain dead tree burning...I do not feel comfortable with a fire that could burn LONG after I have left the scene. Plus, I like to leave the ol' dead hollows for dens, etc, for other wildlife to use.
Where I have created brush piles in the timber for rabbits, turkey nesting, etc, I will also use the leaf blower and make a barrier/fire break around them.
I have used a leaf blower, and also a riding lawn mower at times, to create a bare earth barrier where I want the fire to originate in the timber. Two passes, about 90" width, of barrier on the upwind side is God's plenty for a low, slow burning fire. That relatively narrow band could also be sufficient on the downwind side, but I normally play it safe and double that width OR I will let the wind carry the fire to a place that I have already burned, etc, so no real fire break is needed. I have also used a disk or tiller to create a bare earth barrier on the extreme edge of the timber, to let it burn all the way through the timber and then terminate at the field edge.
I also burn according to the wind direction and will always begin with a downwind backing fire and let it creep into the wind for a bit...then go to the upwind section and light it up and let it go downwind to meet the previously lit backfire.
A backpack leaf blower is awesome in these cases, a backpack sprayer is also a good tool to have handy if you have more than one person doing this. Right or wrong, I have burned many times by myself without incident. The key is the prep.
Watch those hollow trees, that is where the problems can come in though. Don't let those get on fire and it is otherwise pretty easy.
