campinspecter carries one with him whenever he goes wood cutting if it has been dry out. He also packs a water can with a sprayer.
Really useful tool. You can split wood, cut back brush, clear ground (rake) and chop roots with it… in a hurry.
It is a good multi tool, bit it's a little short for my liking. I prefer a rake, or either my drip torch if we just take more.
That's terrible that 12k acres burned. Getting worse nationwide each year. We rarely have fires here anymore; I don't know why. When I was a kid, had small forest fires from time to time. Makes me curious why we don't see them much at all anymore. The only difference I know in forestry is that, now, mixed (hardwood and pine) forests have been largely converted to pine plantations.
For the most part, pines can equal more fire. They are usually warmer and drier stands than hardwoods, and fires in pines are "typically" hotter, all other things equal.
The first one was in my backyard, I see this one's in yours. Really getting tired of this happening every year.
Hate to say it, but it will be happening more and more. If anyone is in a fire prone environment, I would suggest that they take measures like Cash did....look into programs/ideas such as Firewise and do improvements / fire mitigation around their home and/or property.
Around here it is a grass fire with a 30-mph wind. Moves very fast and the grass is very dry. I keep the grass cut down around my place.
The pine barrens of south Jersey are fire prone and fire adaptive. Native Americans used to practice controlled burns to help manage them. It’s very similar to the sandy pines on and near cape cod. The main difference here is more heat and not as much ocean influence
YES!! My home was in a wildfire near a national forest that was not maintained for decades, all the private property between there and my home were not either and that was one of the most difficult summers of my life being evacuated and losing our fridge, 300lb of beef and buffalo in the garage freezer and not knowing if we would have a home to go back to (our home survived). 104* and 4% humidity and high winds is daunting with hundreds of square miles of downed and standing dead trees from beetle kill. Here we have wild BLM lands around our home but to me that the grass/scrub brush & salt bush fires in my arid area are less daunting than crowning pine trees.
Yeah, there used to be lots of fire, natural and man made. Some bad fire events led to the decision to stop all fire, which led to the accumulation of fuels. There needs to be lots more prescribed fire to reduce fuel loads, but it's gotten very difficult in many places in the country due to build up, political, perceptions etc to put the fire on the ground. I'm not a "man is the only reason for global warming/climate change person", but I can tell you things have changed and fire is a different thing than it was 20 hears ago.
Wow I can’t imagine that hot and dry at the same time. Conditions for this fire were 70’s with humidity around 30% which is dry for us. We had gotten right around 2” of rain within the week as well.
Apologize, I don't remember the exact details but I think I read Roosevelt that thankfully named National Forests but also put forth fire suppression instead of letting Mother Nature do her thing. This also contributed to the Pine Beetle kill out here. Sorry if my details are wrong but you all get my jist.
I work for the City of Prescott's lakes division and have done firewise work around the lakes and my own home. The problem is if a crown fire gets going it's all over.
Crowning is what took the fire we were in to uncontrollable, and weeks to even establish a perimeter. Hope you rest a bit easier knowing you took defensible steps
Not saying this is the case in all situations obviously, but mainly thinking of federal stands of timber out that way (all fed lands actually). But environmental type groups have made it hard to impossible for agencies to manage resources ie cut, thin trees the way they should. If the trees are thinned out, you may get some individual tree crowning, but for the most part you can't get those devastating canopy crown fires because the fuel isn't there to sustain that fire. Ladder fuels are imp too, but with a thinned stand you have less of those fines coming down to get caught in the mid and lowerstory. Sure you could have some major wind and weather events that do damage, but overall it would decrease if stands could be managed. Lots of other factors obviously on the whole fire dynamic as well....
That's what is so ironic about it all, many of these people focus on the minor and miss the major...all the new wood stoves have to be ultra clean, but then we don't prevent forest fires that cause a million times more pollution, cause untold property damage, and take lives...just makes no sense
