Our first burn was done on Martin Farm on February 21, 2021. The SPBA put out a call for help and several volunteers came out to help with my burn. We burned the 7 year old planted pine area that I had been very laboriously keeping open through weedeating with a brush blade and mowing with a bushog. Man, I wish I had been doing this for years ! I liked doing it, and I liked the way it changed the land.

We made several additional burns that winter, each time becoming a little more comfortable with the process, confident in my abilities to do this thing, and gradually accumulating the experience, tools and network to do more. I took the Certified Burner course that that spring (2021) and assisted in several other burns off my property. I purchase a 2-way radio set for communication, a drip torch for running fire lines, a backpack blower for creating fire lanes, a duff rake and even an RH meter!

An additional great boost that we got in the early summer of that year was the use of the Americorp fire crew that spent part of a week on the farm building fire lanes that would delineate the burn blocks. That crew of 7-8 young people did what would have taken me a year to do. Such a lucky break and a boost to this transition. So going into the burn season of 2021-2022, we were beginning to get prepared and develop a routine.

This burn season was mostly an experiment of one form or another for me. “Learning through doing” was exactly what we were doing. Trying to get all the holes to line up in the cheese. Juggling all the uncontrollable variables. Trying to be safe and prudent, but not so cautious that we never burned a thing. Learning more through every attempt at where that line was. Discovering how each environment was different than every other and took a different set of conditions to have a successful burn. We couldn’t get any burns in during January or February because of too much wind, too dry, too wet, etc. But mostly we didn’t get any burns then because I knew we still had time so could wait for more “perfect” conditions. We got the first burn in during March, and a couple more in April. These were great, but the season was closing and we had so much more I wanted to burn.

Warm season burns were something I was keen to try. And try we did. But they were difficult, as it was very difficult to get the fires to burn with the dense leaf cover that held in humidity and blocked wind flow. But we did a couple in June. They seemed to go fine, but duff fires around several of my big lobs burned for days and I am still worried that they may be damaged or killed over time. So I decided no more burns until November at least.

So that kind of brings me up to the current day regarding burns. But we have done so much more while we are waiting for our next window. Chipping away at the corners, trying to make progress toward my goal of transforming this land. That will be the next story.