The Wooden Nutmeg

Photo essay from the Wood River Valley area: http://d90.us/wooden_nutmeg/essays/Arcadia_2010/

A really great write up of managing fire in New England Pine Barrens, archive here.

In addition to those “natural community” issues, few active firefighters have seen truly severe fire conditions in New England.

Although rainfall alone doesn’t dictate fire danger (frequency of rain is likely much more important in New England in keeping fire danger to “high” or below), the following graphs show a very sharp difference between pre-1970 and post-1970 climate. You can get more data for different regions of the New England states here.

I strongly suspect that it is not coincidence that we haven’t had a serious forest fire problem in southern New England since the early 1960s. Before, roughly, 1970 we used to experience a deep drought about every ten years. Nothing since 1970 has matched those 10 year droughts.

Also I’m still researching the frequency rain events. Rain tends to “reset” the fire danger.

Let’s assume a cycle like this; while conjecture it’s not an unreasonable cycle based on my observations over the years:
Day 1: Rain (Low danger)
Day 2: Moderate
Day 3: High
Day 4: High
Day 5: High
Day 6: High
Day 7: Very High
Day 8: Very High
Day 9: Very High
Day 10: Rain (Low)

Now add in one overnight rain:
Day 1: Rain (Low danger)
Day 2: Moderate
Day 3: High
Day 4: High
Day 5: Rain overnight (moderate)
Day 6: Moderate
Day 7: High
Day 8: High
Day 9: High
Day 10: Rain (Low)

Most people wouldn’t notice a major impact from an extra shower or two in April, but it could be having a very large impact on fire danger.

One of the best articles I’ve read on the use of prescribed fire on Cape Cod’s Pitch Pine & Scrub Oak Barrens: Bringing Back the Burn from the July 2005 issue of Northern Sky News. Archived here.

Nice article from the Vineyard Gazette on prescribed burns on the Vineyard. Archived here.

This included mentions of some major historical fires:
May 12, 1916: 20 square miles, blamed for extinction of the heath hen.
1926: 10 square miles for the year
1927: 10 square miles for the year
1929: 4 square miles for the year

I went for a walk today to take some photographs as a follow up to the prescribed burn Pomfret carried out in the Audobon nature sanctuary last year, burning a small pitch pine grove.

Pomfret prescribed burn

My full photo essay is here.

After walking half a mile to the location, I took out my camera and as it was powering up I wondered if I had put a memory card in it…then the screen came up blue with red text explaining I was a moron.

But that fits this topic well — be prepared!  You’re an officer headed to the call.  You see the smoke, you’re sizing it up in your mind — ok, no problem, looks about half a mile in, we have keys for the gate, we’ll just drive in with the forestry truck and pickups, heck the farm lanes will hold the weight of an Engine-Tanker if we need more water.  Nothing special.

You go down into the parking area, and your first sign of trouble is the two new 24″ culverts sitting along the farm lane used to access the area.  You walk through the pedestrian gate and down the lane a few feet to confirm your fear and see this:

Washed out lane

You’re not even got get ATVs across that unless you start digging with picks and shovels.  Good news, water supply is not an issue.  Bad news, it’s going to be a long afternoon.  Time to go back to your pickup and look at the aerial photograph printouts from Google Earth of your district that are in your map book and see if there is a way to get vehicles in closer.  Not time to hit the panic button, but a bit of pre-planning driving around the district in the early spring would’ve avoided the surprise.

With the map book you have a cheat sheet for hose lays and you look up that 2,500′ of 1.5″ synthetic jacket weeping forestry hose, 50psi nozzle pressure, 125psi from a portable pump, will deliver around 40gpm.  Guess that’s not too bad if we can’t drive in any closer.