abuse from drive by cruisers controlled burns no respect

[primetime49]

This is probaly one of the hardest thing to write about because most people do not have any knowledge of why we burn off our grasse and wild food souce annual fields every few years.On thursday after planning on burning off 140 of 160 acres of grasses CRP<CREP<RIM and other programmed land we met with all kinds of gaulkers and fire complaints.You see that after only 3 years our variety of food souce growths were already cut in half as these are only annuals ,to regrow only by seed dropped by previous plants.With great concern that this property wood soon look like other one variety growths that I have grown tired of seeing we decided to do a prescribed burn to enhance the regowth of dopped and native seed nodw deminishing. However after doing a site plan and getting the proper permit from local fire marshall we had two fire calls to property even thou we had given the fire marshall our cell numberthey never called ,they simply got there firemaen out of work at 330 in the afternoon the first time and said that they had the wrong adrress.After they surveyed the area and said that it looked to be going good they left.One of them than proceeded to burn some small acerage across the road from us the same evening.I did ask the fire marshall to please keep my phone number with him thruout this burn and call to see if we needed assistance if they had any more reports.He agreed to this and we were back to our burn. Our fire although was a large area burned at a very slow but even rate .Twice that evening and later that nite 1130 neighbors stopped to see how it was going. OUR burn rate on an even 3/8 mile wide fire had buned 2500 feet long and with only 30 to 150 feet of depth left on a half mile we were getting only 1 foot to burn every 10 minutes ,not quite smoldering but almost done. So we decided to go back and check the other half mile we had buned and put out any sparks if any,only found 3 spots smallbranches.WE had watered down the grass at the slough at the end of our burn line and plwed 3/8 mile long the day before leaving this as the very end of fire for this part. At 1215 we went to make sandwiches and get boots etc so could get pump out of slough. on the way back put we had fire pickups running aroun all over our fields putting out a fire called in by county sherriff at 1233.Trucks had got ther at 100 and left driving right by me at 133 They hadnt called again and we had 15 to 1oo feet to burn to hit the slough area and plowing. Today in the paper it said that they were called to a fire left unattended and when I called them they said I would be getting a bill for $600.00. even thou allthe yard lights were on and I was out in the fields working thay said we were not on property.ITs to bad they didnt call or come to house nor did the officer as we would have talked to them about this .we still had 80 acres to burn next to this but as the drissel turned to an outright rain for the past 20 hours we will have to finish next year.If you want to see the differnce between the same planting on same farm contact me and come and see the reason for burns.If you want see justice in action for sportsmen come and back me when I rfuese to pay this burn bill,if you want to see me turn this back into farmland ignore this post --------burned in K county-----------

[strat-o-caster]

I'm behind you!! I have property in Pope County.. What I don't understand is why they didn't call you or talk to ya? Something doesn't add up.... Strat

[Mark Christianson]

I think we need to hear the other side of the story.

[primetime49]

I hope the other side has balls enough to put there view in here as I am making them awre of this web site..Yesterday I talked on a radio show about this and asked our local legislators to start a bill asking that roadsides be posted as follows .[CONTROLLED BURN IN EFFECT PHONE 555-555-5555 IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS] These signs would be put up at roads concurrent with the burns.Also have fire marshalls notify other public entities about burns so no interference comes along with these burns.As I stated the neighbors all stopped by to visit and the ones down the road burned about 225 acres last sunday. And as I stated one neighbor burned his grasses the night after leaving my burn that afternoon.We will get something done on this as we have great out doors journalists around here that have been putting a lot of attention to regrowth and upkeep of crp ,crep, rim properties.Also we used this farm as a model for U of M seed corse and prairie planting .It is one of the largest Crep inducties in farm program. I worked to get sign ups since the start in MN. having had Congressmen that started it here in1994 to1998 ,being that I endorsed it and talked several people into signing up for it I will treat ia like a kid and nurtre it into its midlife.The one thing I am really tired of are all of the private and public lands that have turned into single type food source acerages.These burns are written into your crp and other contracts and come with co pay to enhance them as such.It would be nice to get more inpuy on this especially from land owners as they are the ones it comes down to to keep nature fed.

[Powerstroke]

I am speaking in general and don't know the rules for your area......

After working for the DNR doing prescribed burns and now working ona public fire dept. I know that someone has to be monitoring the fireline at all times. Once the burn has begun there must be people "ON THE LINE" the entire time. It sounds like your group took a few breaks during the day and although there were people on the property it sounds like there wasn't anyone monitoring the fireline or else you would've seen the fire dept show up.

I find it hard to believe that the fire dept showed up without you knowing if you were watching your burn so well. Seems like the sheriff saw an "unattended" fire and acted appropriatly. Permits and permission mean nothing if you're not watching your fire at all times.

With the DNR we had rules governing how many people are required by the size of the advancing fireline. Whether on ATV's or trucks no one left the line without a replacement. Period.

I do however agree that it sucks that there is no communication between law enforcement and fire, but thats pretty normal. With the DNR we had to notify all law enforcement in the area, fire depts and their dispatches. Dispatch is most important cause they will field all the calls no matter what. Fire Marshall might give a permit but he won't tell dispatch, thats your responsibility. ALso, if smoke will cross a public road, then signs were necessary. You should make them if you don't like gawkers.

[HunterLee]

dont take it to personal as last year the dnr was burning a WMA and the local fire dept got called and was out there. The DNR had watertrucks and everything so i am pretty sure it was a lack of communication as i went there to check it out and when the fire dept got there then turned around went back to town. Must be just to hard to call someone when everyone has a cell phone.

[primetime49]

powerstroke it seems your pretty up on how this is supposed to work so you probaly will understand that we did not leave fireline to visit every driver by and gaulker on roads around burn .the burn went very smoothly and as we were down to last 20 feet of over half mile on end we never got more than 600 feet away from virtually end of line[field plowed day before and a slough, we listened to the persons in the trucks who were out that repotedly lost earlier that day as I stated one member of the fire department went across the road and burned his grasses after leaving that day .we were just tired of there interuption from previously that afternoon and figured they were not going to sleep until they quit getting calls from public. AND BY GOD THEY SAVED THAT SLOUGH AND PLOWED FRESH BLACK DIRT FROM DISASTER.tALKED TO MOST PARTIES THAT STOPPED BY DURING BURN TODAY AT A COUPLE CHURCH FUNCTIOS TODAY AND THEY SAID SAME DEPARTMENT GOT STICK IN A DRIVEWAY LAST WEEK ON ANOTHER CONTROLLED BURN THAY WERE NOT CALLED TO BY BURNERS.tHE GUY ON THE DPARTMENT THAT WENT AND BURNED HIS PROPERTY AFTER LEAVING MINE AND HIS FAMILY ARE AMUSED AT THIS AS ARE MOST PEOPLE IN THIS AREA,iM NOTLOST FIRE DPARTMENTS ,WITH NO COMMUNICTION ARE NOT A GOOD THING AND THEY WERE TWICE TOLD TO RESPOND TO US ON THIS BURN ,ANOTHER LOCAL DPARTMENT PERSON SAID THAT THEY SHOULD HAVE CALLED TO SEE IF WE WERE IN NEED OF ASSISTANCE AND NOT DRIVE BY US WITHOUT PERMISSION TO EXTINGUISH FIRE .wITH THIS FIRE BRINGING THEM OUT OF THERE BEDS AT 1233 PM I PROBALY WOULD HAVE EXTIGUISHED IT MYSELF AS OUR PUMP AND HOSE WERE IN THE SLOUGH AT TYHE END OF THE BURN INCASE WE WOULD NEED WATER.

[kentuck_ike]

As a firefighter myself I would have to agree with powerstroke. In our county, you must be with in 100 feet of the fire with the permit in your pocket. the permit also states it is the permit holders responiblity to contact the local fire chief not the fire marsha,l in our area the fire marshall only says when it is ok to burn & investigates for causes. Don't get to mad at the firefighters they are just doing their jobs,(probably volunteer) and may be your best friend at your next fire.

That being said I also support the burning of grassland, their is a lot of wasted habbit because it isn't properly burned. I have land in the 1st year of the crep program and I fully intended to burn at year 3 and then as needed.

One more note, our department would probably not charge you anything, and ask you to call dispatch and let them know what you are doing, I assume you didn't contact dispatch as most dispatch are run out of the sheriffs office.

I guess I can see both sides of this, let us know what happens.

[primetime49]

I have never reviewed any posts that got 232 views in 48 hours.Thanks to everyone interested,especially the fire fighters.See Yahoo [guidelines comtrolled burns acres]also a very information filled source ,41000 and some sites. As you set up a plan you determine boundaries as we did ,plowing the west side of burn and around one 4 year old 9 row planting of trees and bbushes 1/2 mile long we determined the day was right as smoke would blow away from road and neighbors,we figured the end line ,the slough they put the fire out 20 to 1oo feet away from and where we kept our water pump so it was safe if we needed iy.Also as I stated we considered humidity as with a fine drizzle for the 1and 1/2 hours at the end near slough and fresh plowing which allowed us to be away upto 600 feet to look for smolderings and accelerate them to burn out.Yes we even told the Firs chief or marshall as they are called here to use the phone if they had any problems.The wind was right the weather channel and weather and coast guard radio bands were observed consantly ,and the back burn had moved this fire at a rate of only 1 foot every 3 minutes on dryer sunny part of day,1 foot every 5 minutes most of day and to the point of having to be tended and accelerated after sunset and dew and drizzle set in.Sloughs dont burn thats why we planned to burn from the downside towards this plot.Fresh plowed black dirt definatly doesnt burn,by the way were putting in Oats.Forage sorghum, Corn on this property we plowed as the 131 acres of crp are not an adequit food source for animals and fowl.Animals forage for different food sources in different seasons and even like to mix during same days.I have seen many different species occupy themselves hitting the smorgasbord daily.I went in with a plan and the only problem was communiction,which I as the burner was denied.This fire department has been out cruising other ares to ,which may be good or bad.Several firemen asked that maybe we can get together and both learn from them by having them out next year to finish other half.By the way there is no established guidline for this area,but I will work to hekp establish one as several more landowners have contacted me about taking carew of this burn well done.I have taken measures to legislation,you may want to contact Al Juhnke Democrat and sports men from willmar as I worder more public notie such as road poting ,department communication,and guidelines are needed.LETS RETURN OUR GRASS LANDS TO A FOOD SOURCE NOT A SINGLE SPECIES EMBARRASMENT THEY HAVE TURNED INTO.THE MONEY WAS IN THE PLAN WHEN YOU PLANTED THESE FIELDS TO CONTROL AND MAINTAIN THEM SO LETS DO IT.

[BLACKJACK]

Interesting posts, I can see both sides of the story, both from the landowner side and from the firefighter side and since I also live in Kandiyohi County (Norway Lake township) and have done controlled burns on my own, I need to post my experiences.

1) Let me congratulate you primetime on doing a burn, most people don't have the cajones to do it and you'll also love the results, your native grasses will come back three times as thick and twice as high.

2) These controlled burns are nothing to screw around with, they burn fast and hot and they're normally done at a time of the year when the whole country side is ripe for burning. This from a person that is a confirmed pyro that hasn't met a fire he doesn't like, I burnt down my old barn (almost orgasmic, when it blew the cupolas off and then the roof fell in.... It was great!!), and have done controlled burns on my own 70 acres of CRP. When your CRP has been growing a few years and has a good trash buildup, once you have your backburn done, and light the windward side, its a sight to behold! It will roar thru that CRP and nothing will stop it! My mantra to my helpers is don't cross the grass to be burnt because you won't be able to outrun the fire!!!!! These fires are nothing to play with and thats why the local authorities are so careful.

3) When I do my burns, I plan a year in advance and mow a 25 foot strip all the way around each field to be burnt. That provides a green buffer all the way around the field. Then I wait until a spring day with the proper wind direction and not too much of it!! The key is to start your backburn on the downwind side and take your time, work your backburn around both ways to the windward side beating out any fires that try to cross your green fire break. Then when you get on the windward side, you just let it fire up and watch it whoosh thru - your back burn will control it. If it takes two hours for the burn, 1 hour and 50 minutes is spent on doing the back fire and the last 10 minutes is watching it whoosh thru. I even have my own driptorch to help with the burns. Even with the best of plans, I still had one fire get away from me and burn up about 600 trees. Gee whiz I said!!

4) My experience with the Kandiyohi county officials has been good, get my burn permit from Milt over in Sunburg, and then call the county sheriff dispatch when I start the fire. I usually forget to call them back, but so far I've had no problems - and no fire calls. My only complaint is that the burn permits only go for two weeks now, if you don't get the right conditions, you have to go get another permit; they used to issue them for a year.

5) From what I'm reading in your posts you made several mistakes. One, you left your fire unattended. The county sheriff is doing his job when he calls the fire dept out. Plain and simple, he was doing his job. As a person that lives in the country and worries about fire racing at my house from the SW, I appreciate him calling. Hopefully you learned your lesson and will stay with your fire next time. Two, you were burning on a day (Sat or Sun during the rain!!) that was not conducive to a good burn. Good for control but tough to burn anything, tough to do a backfire, tough to get it done in a timely manner. I've noticed during my burns that once the sun goes down and the dew moves in, its tough. Plus we had 2.2 inches of rain over the weekend! I'll bet what you did burn was patchy and didn't burn well. Just looking at the forecast for this week, Tues or Wed look like good burn days, depending on the wind - lots of moisture and a little sun.

6) Be careful what you wish for concerning who can light fires and how they're controlled. How would you like to see a regulation that only trained agency can do controlled burns? I've inquired on costs of hiring people and its not cheap!!! What is it that you want Juhnke to do??

7) I so agree with you that more should be done to CRP acres to upgrade the mono-culture/brome that you see but its not cheap or easy. I've talked to different agency about help with burns but they're either busy with their own burns or don't want to accept the liability. And as I've said most people don't have the cajones to burn but there are ways of rehabilitating CRP with disking and reseeding.

As you can see by the length of my post I'm also passionate about burning!!!

By the way, was this spot off number one, west of Norway Lake? I saw a new burn this morning.

[primetime49]

Blackjack in response to your reply 1.yes the perenial grasses will come back ,but they were the only thing left and what we are trying to do is get the annuals back that are only reintroduced by such a burn. 2.Controlled burn means that I was burning backburn only because as you stated these things can become fierce ,my pace is more of the controll freak,maybe too much of a chicken to do it quickly. 3.Hyko was out evening before [thursday and we plowed 20 acres along west side down to slough and 3/8 mile along the 9 rows new trees on north where we started fire.The east side is county hwy 1 so you saw the area 4.we green cut last fall and thursday around the towering green spruces on hill.Also we back burned that area to be extra cautious. 5.YO we got our permit from Milt and called him as fire was lit as this was requested from him as its been on other permits hes given me.Also thought we had a clear line of communication that wed call him immediatly if needed and he would call us if a call was put in to him.At about 3;45 M.A.Peterson called in a fire out of control and he came by this one after responding to that one,he said ours looked ok.J>Bendickson was with him and went to his farm north of gravel road and hinm and M>Bendicksonburned a ditch and worked field with disk for awhile.There ma and pa stopped and visited with me for a while as they had been informed a few days earlier that we intended to burn.No it did not rain at all that day but started to drizzle at about 9;45 that evening ,but I was already down naes the slough and plowing so was almost complete for this part.Black dirt or water do not burn but I was trying to complete burn right into both.I was always there in sight of fireline .11;45 Pierces stopped by as I was sitting in my van in Marshaals alfalfa that they plented last fall,also absolutly not a fire chance this would be the south side.At 12;15 I went out with shovel and rake to see if I could find a few spots to put out.Saw the Sherrif and several other cars on road but had seen many cruisers that day and I am not obliged to leave fire scene to go to road to talk with anyone.I was 600 feet from road when saw fire p'ups come in and watched drive around putting out fire.20 to 100 feet away from non burnable endlines plowing and water.More than a little bit mad about this i went back to get atv and was gonna ask them what they were up to they took off for other end of field and drove within 30 feet from a haty bale ,they did not respond to my shout to stopand explain themselves and went out driveway and back to town.Total time from sherriff disparctch to leaving fire hall to go back home 1hour 30 minutes including going to hall getting gear going to farm and driving back to hall and lockin up .Go drive it one day. 7.Yes the guys doing these burns are busy and they do cost money ,IM ONE OF THEM.but there is co pay in most programs to enhance this and thats one of the reasons i was there. 7.I will invite you over in spring 07 to watch and talk to you on bothof our experiences .P<S<go down cty rd 210 for 2 miles west of here and see some of the other great burns accomplished last couple weeks.Yes there is talk that a certain fire department showed up at them too.I will not be burning any more this year as it willnot be dry enough and we need to now watch the pheasants and ducks get there neste in. THe geese have already layed and have been sitting on nests for days .pheasants havent started but do about now.We are also putitng in ducklings as I just am amazed at how well it was working years agpo to introduce ducks like people do pheasants nowadays.Also am busy on helping some burns and cleanups and plantings on other propertys up north and plantings around here.Gotta go hope everyone can get something out of this ,I will check posts next weekend to see if I can learn some more,try to rspond to if time allows thanks

[Mark Christianson]

Dood

Way too much to digest for the majority of people reading forums. I won't even bother reading it all.

Sorry. Too much detail and VERY confusing to follow.

I think you have great intentions and I agree with your drive to do the burns and such.

[BLACKJACK]

Primetime, drove by that spot again last night on the way home, took the gravel on the north side. Those ponds are really holding some water this year!!! And the tree belts are starting to look good, the weed fabric is the way to go. Nice piece of property! I've always lusted after it as I drove by, was meaning to track down the owners and ask for pheasant hunting permission but if its owned by other hunters I guess thats out....

A couple of thoughts from your last post:

1) Its still not too late to burn some more. Yeah you might get a couple of duck or pheasant nests but in the long term you'll be creating more and better habitat for them.

2) Expand on your idea on releasing ducklings?? I know that Pheasants Forever discourages the idea of releasing pheasant chicks because it actually encourages predators to focus on pheasants, both the released and wild chicks, and in studies the survival rate is very low. Habitat is the key. With those ponds you have, the ducks will come. I think you'd be better off spending some time on predator control so those ducks have better luck nesting. I know they discourage people from releasing 'wild' turkeys because of inferior genetics, what kind of genetics will you be introducing with some game farm mallards? Talk to some biologists before you do it.

Good luck to you.

[Powerstroke]

I admire your passion for your property and for habitat preservation in general. I hope I didn't come off to apathetic. You wrote a very passionate post but it did contain proof of your own faults. It was not my intention to poke at you and belittle what you were doing.

I wouldn't have worked at the DNR if I didn't believe in what we (and you) were doing.

Keep up the good work and I hope you don't run into problems in the future.

[Eric Wettschreck]

Glad to hear you're burning. It really needs to happen.

I'm not a lawyer but I am the assistant chief of our fire dept. I don't know about other departments, but our SOP is that when a fire gets called in, we roll.

During controlled burns there are numerous 911 calls from concerned people that see a chunk of mother nature on fire. If the property owner contacts the sherrifs office,(Calls in the burn) then dispach doesn't call us out. If we arrive and the property owner is there, and shows a permit, we leave. If we arrive and no one is there, we're going to put the fire out. We have no choice, we have to. Then, yes, the property owner is going to get a bill.

Communication is the key.

[carpshooterdeluxe]

all the stuff about burning reminds me of when we burned off a 17 acre field of crp, which was going on nearly 8 years without disking or burning; we ripped 32 feet on all four sides to make fire lines, and with the burn half way across we took a quick break to get a pop from the house, as we drove back around the grove with the fourwheeler all it took was one look to know we were in trouble; embers carried in a breeze and lit up the neigbors crp on the same ravine...burned off a 400'x 1/2 mile stretch of neigbors new tall switchgrass before the fire dept. could stop it at the gravel road from getting into the wildlife. that was a crazy day!

[primetime49]

boiler guy 'guess that being I was there and they didnt ask to see permit or if I wanted to have fire put out I fit guidelines,From what IM hearing is dispatch was called by cruiser [sheriffs department.They were not on property but on road ,fire was very under control as it had been all day.No persons came up to us to ask us about it .Several fire departments we talked to have told us that under circumstances we were doing this right and figure that being they didnt come up to where we were in field or call us as had been proposed [our number was on the permit for that purpose]they were probaly planning on tending to all fires in this area as they had earlier this day and weekend before .I hope they relly werent lost earlier this day as stated by fire chief milt or the wekend befor when they got stuck on another permitted burn.ONe thing I do have a question on is we called them at 1:33that day to start burn .are they supposed to call sherriff or are we .They requested we phone them as we are ready to start??? Any way their bill came today and also got calls back from some of the cost share groups that keep this farm looking like a food base and we will probaly decide over weekend what to do .Also we put in several calls to sherr. officers and requested follow up but have no response yet.Im thinking that it is time to set up printed guidelines for this area so this doesnt happen to others.The good part is I have had a half a dozen inquirees from locals about taking over maintenence of there fields.But it really sucks that these people we pay dont seem to pick up a phone and follow thru with answers to our questions.goota go and plant some food plots .

[primetime49]

Blackjack just dont have any more time to burn as have other engagements.we have studied and used info from a wide range of sources before deciding what to do on birds.I dont agree with p f as we have planted birds 3 of last 4 years with success ranging anywhere from great to beyond immaginable.260 pheasants 2 years ago and over 400 3 years harvested under very heavy hunting pressure from many groups of hunters,clubs media etc. on weekends we did freinds and family and it has always been fun.Last year didnt put out birds and wont put out pheasants this year till later and than they will be matures. As we are in the heart of turkey country we just wouldnt feel right about being the ones that caused an epidemic.I tryed to get turkeys for the oak woods half mile to west with no result and have now heard we no longer have a wild turkey club in county,also we have not had a mn deer hunters for several years but understnd they still have a bank account if someone out there has a project in mind you might want to inquire to mn deer hunters assoc as heard they want moneys to be used in K county.We have way to many deer already as nticed last day of muzzle watching cars parked or cruising and keeping a good watch at 28 family fed rovers .Unfortunatly they know where they are safe and wouldnt budge.Many of the experts have hunted regular and we sometimes feel that any changes different than everyone use the same plan will either curse you or invent new idaeas ,we like the new ideas wheb it comes to pheasants.I really dont believe we will ever have a truly wild turkey flock around here.oops come on out and hunt this fall as I also have several othrt interesting proerties in area,some phenom seasonal fishing too.

[primetime49]

OK so we made our decision ,the bill came today and when the dispatcher calls out the trucks in the middle of the night they do have to respond.Sorry the communication wasnt there between us or fire department or the officer calling in the fire at 12;33 pm.But you have a small town fire department that really serves a purpose.I voted at our lake owners association to give them 2 dfiilators instead of one acouple years ago they have responded to several of my relatives and freinds homes at all times of the day or year. Sure we need guidelines to make sure the persons doing these burns get more control and make this more of a solution than a problem. I have lived my entire life as a philanthropist,and I consider paying this bill[which we hoped they wouldnt send]just another part of being a community servant. Will work with legislators to define burns and still make it possible to do them both as a profession or as private party. Hvae worked to pressure arson for hire case in Mound a few years ago to put away the aroson planner which by the way resulted in the death of two firefighters and am probaly thinking of them and the a hole that caused that dilema more than thinking of right and wrong here.Keep burning and support your local public services.PLease come and look at this half burn as it matures this faal to see how much it works ,especially comparing it to neighboring propertys that have not been taken care of.the money was in your program when you signed up so use it .thanks for you guy's input.Hope your all good sports and use this .