Today I spent a little time getting our outdoor firepit ready for cooking outdoors. I moved the chairs out and stacked some wood close to the pit. I cut a couple of dead pine and cedar trees for this wood, and I also have some ugly pieces that I'm going to saw up as well. There's one more dead pine on my land that I want to cut down. I also set up a level spot for the beer cooler during those warm summer evenings, and found the grate that we cook meat over the fire. Here are a couple of pictures of the wood, the stack is 2 deep with more coming. I just need to get it covered in the next day or two. Also included a picture of the help.
Firepit season has begun. We've had two fires so far in ours this year. It bas become a Saturday night ritual. I find myself looking forward to it all week long. Brings the family together and gets everyone outdoors.
So, how do you work around a "burn ban" if it happens to be in effect on a Saturday? This is a question for anyone who does this fairly often. Just an FYI, I have a nice sized pit in the yard too. Serious question, as I'm just a wee bit paranoid about starting a forest/brush fire (lady next door did that a couple years ago and it was heading toward my property/woods").
In the olden days, our burn bans did not include cooking fires, only non enclosed rubbish/slash during daylight hours. The past few years they have come up with different levels of bans (lawyers at work). A "total ban" is anything bigger than a Bic lighter....Even a screen covered burn barrel is banned no matter what time of day or night. It has rained every day for the past week, but our ban is still in effect.....
I don't remember burning during a burn ban. If I were going to, I'd have a water hose on standby. You could wet the ground surrounding the pit and wet the pit down when finished.
I'm kinda spooked when I burn in the pit too, dry conditions or not. Right next to our woods. I always have the hose right beside the pit and I won't burn if weather guessers guess it's gonna be windy. Of course, they're not always right cuz... well, they guess.
Being concerned about a spreading fire is good. Around here I'm not sure if there is a ban but it is super dry and would not take much to set off a big fire. Just last week someone's grass fire got out of hand. Fire departments responded. Our fire chief ended up on crutches but one of our other men is in Ford hospital in Detroit. They flew him down there after flying him to Saginaw. Guess he is not in very good shape. What happened? The last thing to put out was a burning tree. Just as they were walking to it, the tree fell over and hit the 2 men. Nasty.
Oh, the township will flat out tell me not to burn. Neighbor got a fine and a ticket too. Her "pit" was a very simple 2' circle with a few small rocks around it in the middle of a field (might even be on my property), not dug into the ground at all. The fire jumped out and caught the surrounding grass on fire. Luckily, I was outside and heard her call me over. She ended up calling 911. She knew a lot of the guys on the crew too. http://www.dnr.state.mi.us/burnpermits/
There are a lot of campgrounds around. They most all have fire pits going on every site most every night the site is occupied. As far as I can recall, there hasn't been issues with these.
In our township we need a permit to burn. Once we get a permit, we have to call in advance and let the township know we are going to have a fire. That starts April 1 every year. The exception is that we are allowed a fire no bigger than 2 feet by two feet by two feet without a permit. A good number of years ago I raked spring leaves into a large pile where I wanted to start a garden, then burned the leaves on a calm day. Stood beside the fire with a hose and monitored the fire the entire time it was burning. Hosed it down well after, and shoveled earth on it. Next morning When I went out, I saw smouldering at the site. I am on bedrock and only have a few inches of soil. The previous fall I had piled leaves and peat moss and rock phosphate and blood meal at the site, hoping to get some composted soil. It was totally composted to the naked eye, and weeds were growing, which was why I had raked the leaves there and burned them. Turns out some of the peat moss I put there the previous fall must have been slowly burning all night, despite the soil and water. I hosed that darn thing down for almost a week. It kept resmouldering. Fire can travel underground. And peat moss burns well. So I learned.
April - October we have open air fires banned before 4 pm. In the past we have had total bans, not even the campgrounds could get around it. Know your local laws because you could easily get fined, especially if you're in town. For myself, being out in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors, I basically burn when I want. I always have the hose and a 5 gallon bucket of water ready. But a few years ago when it was very dry I didn't burn at all, I didn't need the ban to tell me it was pretty dangerous at that point.
This dog is one of a pair I got 11 years ago. I had to have her sister put to sleep a couple of weeks ago - talk about a hard thing to do. Now that I have just one, she stays with me all the time, the pair of them used to run off. Since she stays, she goes everywhere with me when I'm working outside. She even followed the mower for a couple of hours on Saturday.
Looks good Red Oak! Who doesn't like sitting around the fire in the evening with family and friends. Here's a pic of our fire pit and wood stash. My youngest girl is a firebug like me! No bans here.
Common theme here.... We all love firepits! Crazy kids.. Who knows where they get these goofy ideas... Been using that new fire pit of yours yet this year?
