Burned by smoke

I am a little ticked off.  We have high winds, dry conditions, and a no burn order. Yet, the air is full of smoke.  

John,

Is it local smoke that you can smell?  The reason I ask is that there are some pretty big grass fires in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas that is blowing visible smoke in our general direction.

Eric

Hi Eric,

Might be.   I do know it is not any of my neighbors.  The smell test is iffy because I burned some papers in my wood stove this morning.

Eric Hanson wrote:

...there are some pretty big grass fires in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas that is blowing visible smoke in our general direction.

Eric

Every spring here, as soon as the 'high wind, grass dry, don't burn' notices get put up farmers begin burning off their pastures and all of those brush piles, etc.  
We lost a cabin to a neighbor's pasture burn that got out of control years ago...it burned acres and acres of land.

Do you know where the big grass fires are now in Arkansas? I haven't heard of any right around us.

I just checked the WSIL web site. It appears southern Illinois has its own share of fires getting out of control.

John F Dean wrote:I just checked the WSIL web site. It appears southern Illinois has its own share of fires getting out of control.

Are there national forests with scheduled 'controlled' burns in your area?  Hundreds of acres are burned in rotation here in the Buffalo National River areas as maintenance.  
This year it seemed like there were more over the winter but often the burns are in March.

John, Judith,

Maybe I misheard, but I thought I heard on the same local news that there were fires in Arkansas, but I may have been mistaken.  The fires would be in that general direction though.

Judith,

There is a national forest by us but I have not heard of and prescribed burns.  Yesterday and today seem too windy to me to be doing controlled burns (I would think they would become uncontrolled too quickly).  Sorry to hear about your loss from a completely preventable cause.

Eric

Go here to find info on wildfires.
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/

Hi Denise,

Thanks for the site. In my area there are very few serious wild fires.  It is more normally small to medium farmers doing dumb things.  Seldom do more than a few acres burn that aren’t supposed to.  For a week now, local news has been asking people not to burn and reporting where...in general...the fires were.  It is interesting that some stations have a policy of not reporting the exact location due to gawkers getting in the way.  It is common to see patches of smoke if one is on high ground ... no it isn’t fog.

I went to town to pay a few bills. I passed a burned out creek bed that was still smoking.  It looked like a controlled burn ....but I don’t know how. It is pretty windy.

Hi, when it gets dry here we have fires caused by trailor chains, Lightning strikes, dumb farmers, and dumb campers. The dumb farmers have learned that they have to pay the full bill for the firefighters to come out and put out the fires. They also have to pay for medical assistance out of pocket. So some have lost their farms. As for controlled burns, our state has the same stupid - unscientific policy as the farthest west states. No burning whatsoever of the forest floor. Of course my friends who know better do small circle burns on their own property in safe conditions.

Hi Authur

I have learned that some farmers are more responsible than others.  The ones near me are pretty good.  My neighbor will tell me when he is doing a burn.  He notifies the fire department in advance, and he keeps his own tanker nearby.  He does not light a fire and walk away.  In fact, he had a burn earlier this year when snow was still in the wood line.  He was concerned that he felt the burn would go 6 feet into my property before it stopped.I told him to go for it.  Several days later I checked. The burn went 6 feet into my property as predicted.

This is where I get frustrated ....  when I am in the position of comparing responsible behavior vs less than responsible.

Well put John,

Burning can be done safely and responsibly.  Or it can be done foolishly and dangerously.

I have a burn pile, but it sits between my driveway and a pond.  I keep the area around mowed.  The fire literally has no place to go.

Eric

I notice that in Eric’s general area close to 40 acres burned. I imagine the rain yesterday put it out.

It’s out.  We got soaked with close to 3 inches of rain with possibly more to come.  The main road to town is flooded.  No fire was going to survive that.

Eric