Loading
fire break around my property or not?
Habitat Improvement
Messages posted to thread:
flyingbrass 09-Apr-16
Beendare 09-Apr-16
WV Mountaineer 10-Apr-16
MDW 10-Apr-16
Salagi 10-Apr-16
flyingbrass 10-Apr-16
Indianaforester 10-Apr-16


Date:09-Apr-16

I'm thinking about putting a fire break around my 590 acres. Good idea or not? Will it change the deer patterns? I think they will use is some but just wanted some opinions.

Date:09-Apr-16

Thats a no brainer isn't it?

A buddy just had a big chunk of his property with big trees burned to bare ground last year.....fire breaks are good.

Date:10-Apr-16

Conifers crown fire in decent burn conditions. Deciduous usually don't unless it is an extremely hot fire and been a really dry year. So, your forest type and, the terrain it sets on will determine how you do it.

For a coniferous forest, you will have to be a long ways ahead of the fire and, have a wide birth of no canopy behind the lines, for a fire break to work as designed. When a fire breaks out in a coniferous forest, it will most certainly crown out if burn conditions are decent. So, simply back burning the forest floor ahead of it won't work. The fuel source above has to be taken away as well.

In a deciduous forest, having a good dozer road that can be cleaned out for back burning the forest floor is usually adequate if you are far enough ahead of the fire. These fires head and drive different. And, in most instances, much easier to put out.

Put your dozer road appropriately. It's common in steep terrain, that property boundaries follow ridge lines, etc.... But, you don't want your fire break/ dozer road, exposed to a fire that will be coming up a steep hill at it. So, if this is the case with your boundaries, put it inside the boundary to where a lowering fire is coming at it, instead of a uphill running fire.

I'd do it regardless of the forest type. As a good road around the property has other advantages too. So, I'd say go for it and hope that is all it will ever be used for. God Bless

By: MDW
Date:10-Apr-16

Guess we will find out if it's a good idea or not.

Mid week we had fire go across 160 acres of grass/woods and wiped out all small stuff. I had been wanting to burn some of it, but the winds had been to much for this guy to light a match.

Fire started four miles away in rough terrain and three days later they got it put out.

By: Salagi
Date:10-Apr-16

Arkansas Forestry Commission will help you out in determining things like that. As some said, if it is deciduous trees, it will probably help. If it is coniferous not so much. I've fought fires up here as a volunteer fireman that we had to just let burn because of the terrain. Forestry wouldn't even plow a line around it because of the lay of the land. I've seen cedars catch and the fire jump the crown 50 feet or more. Makes a fire line hard to manage.

What part of Arkansas are you in?

Date:10-Apr-16

Hot Springs, AR

Date:10-Apr-16

Fire breaks make good travel lanes for both you and wildlife. The recommend width is 1.5 times the burning fuel height or 2 times the predicted flame height. If you go with 1 dozer blade wide that should be a good start. Remember that a fire break is used to back fire from and usually will not stop a head fire.

The break will also have to be kept free of fuel over the coming years. Leaves, logs, twigs and leaning snags will have to be cleaned off annually. They can also be used for food plots if they are kept green or bare soil after the growing season.


Bowsite.com DeerBuilder on FacebookYouTube Channel Contact DeerBuilder
Registration
Facebook Page
YouTube Channel
Advertise
Bowsite.com
Copyright © 2012 Bowsite.com. No duplication without prior consent.