This year we had a nice low wind day on March 23rd…since I was going to be in Arkansas rockhunting the following weekend, I took advantage of the weather and decided to burn the 2.5 acres of leaves at Mom`s. I wasn`t sure if I was going to have help or not, next door neighbor Jerry was recovering from some type of virus and unavailable, but Mom was able to call our good family friend Leon to come and help me burn….I had used to leaf blower to create sections just in case I had to burn by myself, so Leon and I went ahead and burned it like that and it worked out just fine. We started out up on top of the hill where it always burns in spots for some reason, leaves are thinner up there for one thing….
It took about 30 minutes to burn off the first section and once we got the second section going, we were able to go back and do some extra raking of leaves into small piles and burn even more off inside the spotty burn area of the first section…the second section burned a lot better than the first one did….
It just kept getting better as we progressed down the hill, the wind was blowing about 6 to 7 mph when it kicked up, and as we kept going, it was kicking up a bit more for us…that really drives the fire and makes it burn hotter going up the slight hillside…better that way…all you need is a little bit of wind, not a lot of wind, to make the leaves and undergrowth burn up better….here you see Leon spreading the fire we set to the third section with his rake…
…and then back off and watch it a few minutes…til it gets going..making sure the heat from it doesn`t cross the line behind us and set the other leaves on fire….
…and as you can see, these flames were traveling up that slight hillside at a pretty good clip….
So we let it go and made sure the line stayed secure….
Then we moved down to the fourth section at the foot of the hill, burning up the hill toward the burn pile, which was really going to take off when it was set cause of all the stuff I had piled on it, plus a few trash bags full of leaves from my rock gardens at my house. That was the last thing we burned…there was a section of tall grass that burned really well across the 3rd section…
By the time we got to the bottom of the hill, the fire was moving way faster but had nowhere to go as far as spreading to any unburned areas….I moved up to the top of the hill by the burn pile to set the fire up there….and Leon handled the bottom area well…
It`s mainly tall weedy grass and leaves, with rocks underneath there, so it can really drive across there pretty good….
Thanks for the great help Leon !!