Fire prevention

[Exador]

First, thanks to everyone who answered my planting post. I have another question about fire prevention. The land I own (pics in my gallery) has lots of downed dead trees. Most all of this is old, decayed and not usable. I have been cutting and piling for later burning. I have also been removing dead limps from living trees. My question is whether I should burn this material. It occurred to me that this kind material could be distributed into smaller brush piles to support wildlife offering cover etc. It would also return nutrients to the soil. I am however worried about continued fire danger. How could this be done and still minimize the danger of spreading fire? My slant is always toward maintaining a natural environment. Should I just burn the piles and be done with it? Any comments would be appreciated.

[Ron Scott]

Piling and burning will work for removing the fuels for increased fire prevention. Some scattered brush piles can be left for wildlife but removing most of the heavy and concentrated fuel load will help in fire prevention.

Scatterering the woody debris and fine fuels will also help to allow some to go back into the soils for nutrient improvement. Also remove fuels around the perimeter of you property to detour any escaped fire onto your property.

[Radar67]

Ron,
     What distance would you recommend for removing fuels from the perimeter of property? I was thinking 5 to 6 feet.

Stew

[tmullen]

Leaving some piles for wildlife is fine. To reduce the fire threat as was said before you need to reduce the fuels and break up the continuity so that a fire can not spread either hoizontaly or verticly. What I recomend to land owners is to limb trees to 10-15 feet up so fire can not ladder to the crown of a tree where fire can spread from tree to tree or do whats known as crown. Space betwwen piles needs to be 1 1/2 time the size of the pile. I would recomend you burn or chip the majority of your pile and leave no more than 1 or 2 piles per acre. As for a fire line around your property the same goes here, look to see what would be th primary carier of fire is it grass brush or dog hair trees the fire line width will need to be 1 1/2 times the hight of the fire carier. Hope this helps if you need more information contact the local USFS BLM or state fire prevention officer or send me an e-mail.
And as my big boos says ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT WILDLAND FIRES!!

[Radar67]

And as my big boos says ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT WILDLAND FIRES!!

That reminds me of the "Smokey Bear" comic book I found in a wall while remodeling a house in the mid 90s. The book was dated 1969 an pretty well preserved except for a few creases. Seems the mail slot had a small opening between the brick exterior and the sheetrock interior. 

Stew

[Ron Scott]

The perimeter clearing distance depends upon the adjacent fuels and usually more for conifers than hardwoods. 1 1/2 times the adjoining tree height is often used here for developing  perimeter "green strips" where we remove the conifers and fine fuels and retain the less flamable hardwoods to break up the fuel types which is what you want to do.

The objective is to develop a "fuel break" to prevent or slow down any fire. Limb prunning as previously mentioned is also a good preventive practice.