1358 



Canadian Forestry Journal, October, 1917 



Best Methods of Burning Brush 



By Henry S. Graves 



Forester, U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



An excellent time for burning brush 

 is after the first snow of winter. 

 This is usually a light fall, and the 

 snow does not penetrate the compact 

 piles of brush sufficiently to prevent 

 burning. There is no danger of the 

 fire running on the ground, and the 

 branches of the standing trees are 

 so damp as to prevent injury by the 

 rising flames. If the brush is burned 

 before winter, it should be only dur- 

 ing damp weather, when the ground 

 is so wet that fire will not run easily. 



When large areas of piled brush 

 are to be burned the work should be 

 organized with care. It should never 

 be undertaken when there is a strong 

 wind, and the best time is in calm 

 weather. If there is any wind, the 

 burning should begin with the piles 

 on the lee side. Several piles may 

 be fired at one time, but they should 

 be some distance apart, with one or 

 more unburnt piles between them. 

 When the first fires have been burned 

 down to coals, the intermediate piles 

 may be ignited. This alternating 

 method of burning the piles prevents 

 the injury to trees and young growth 

 between the piles that might result 

 from the collective volume of heat 

 of adjacent fires. Just as the brush 

 on level ground is burned against 

 the wind, so, on a hillside, the piles 

 near the top are burned first, and 

 the work progresses down the slope. 

 Controlling the Fires 



W'henever large areas of piled 

 brush are to be burned, a sufficient 

 force of men, equipped with fire fight- 

 ing implements, should always be 

 present to insure that the fire will 

 not get beyond control. In some 

 instances, when brush is piled in the 

 winter during logging and left for 

 later burning, the piles become very 

 wet from the snow and rain and do 

 not dry out till late spring or sum- 

 mer, a time when burning on a large 

 scale is dangerous. If the brush of 

 winter lumbering can not be burned 



as the logging proceeds, the piles 

 must ordinarily remain unburned till 

 the first snow of the following winter, 

 or till especially wet weather comes 

 in late summer or fall. 



The devices used in different locali- 

 ties for starting fires in piled brush 

 are many. Some loggers use a torch 

 of burning wood, as resinous pine; 

 others carry live coals from one pile 

 to another; others use a long-handled 

 torch; others, again, pour a little oil 

 on the brush and start it with a match. 

 The most satisfactory seems to be 

 an ordinary tubular torch with wick- 

 ing and a_ ferrule into which a rake 

 handle can be inserted. A good sub- 

 stitute, though a crude one, for the 

 last is a piece of bagging or burlap 

 wound around an iron rod or stick 

 of wood and occasionally saturated 

 with oil. 



Cost of Burning 



The cost of burning piled brush in 

 the coniferous forests may vary from 

 one to thirty cents per thousand, 

 according to the manner in which 

 the brush is piled, the condition of 

 the brush, the size of the crew needed 

 to prevent the running of fire, etc. 

 Commonly, it ranges from five to 

 fifteen cents per thousand feet. Where 

 the cost has been higher than this, 

 it has been attributed either to poor 

 work in piling or to inefficient man- 

 agement in the work of burning. 

 The average cost of both piling and 

 burning should range in coniferous 

 forests between ten and fifty cents, 

 and as the lumbermen become more 

 experienced in performing tha work 

 the cost will be correspondingly re- 

 duced. 



In some coniferous forests careful 

 records were kept of the area actually 

 burned over. Where the stand per 

 acre ran from 10,000 to 50,000 feet 

 per acre, the aggregate area burned 

 over by the brush fires was found to 

 be approximately seven per cent, of 



