 Hi, I'm Norm Haley with Alabama Extension. I serve the northeast corner of Alabama as the natural resources management agent. And we're here today back on site at the Graham Farman Nature Center at our old field demonstration area. We have two four and a half acre demonstration sites here that we have sprayed back in the November-December timeframe to remove the cool season perennial non-native fescue that dominated this past year, this old previous pasture area. And it's time to burn it. We have some heavy thatch here, reducing the seed bank a little bit. We waited as long as we could to come back out here, burn this thatch off, remove it so we can really spur on the hopeful native seed bank that's below this previous fescue pasture. We waited late. You can see there's some topography here. And the reason for that is when you remove this thatch, you do run the risk of a little bit of erosion by removing this as late as possible. Mid-April where we are now, we reduce the erosion aspect, really have a lot of green growth coming on as our soil temperatures warm up and allow that seed bank to respond to hold the soil. And we're here today to show you the prescribed fire process, particularly on some of these small wildlife burns like we have here, this total of nine acres like I mentioned, and go over some of the basic equipment that's required to pull off a successful prescribed burn in terms of wildlife management on some of these smaller burns like we have here. To start off with, you know, when we go to plan a burn, it's important that we really pay attention to the safety aspects. We do not want that prescribed fire to turn into a wildfire. So some of the equipment that we use to maintain the fire and maintain our control would be things as simple as a leaf blower, also even just a hand rake. And these simple potato rakes like this do really well in terms of roughing out a fire break. A lot of times for smaller plots, you can get away with a little, a smaller fire break, something that's not quite to the width of six foot like we'd usually recommend. A leaf blower can very easily blow out small areas and small prescribed fires and wood lots, even on some small sites like we have here today around a pasture. If we have some debris like on this road we have here below us, this gravel trail, if we see some debris, we can quickly blow it out with the leaf blower or also just rake it away with the potato rake. However, for large sites or those are very tall or heavy fuels, it's a good idea to disc or plow in a wider fire break, even up to 30 feet. And we can certainly achieve that with a tractor and a three point hitch and disc drug backing forth to disrupt that fuel layer and contain the fire. However, don't underestimate the value of an ATV and UTV pulling and dragging some of the smaller implements designed for those machines. Some of the tips to make an effective fire breaker or more easily install one with an ATV or UTV is to go in ahead of time, spray out that existing vegetation to kill those roots that will allow that soil to be turned much easier as well as making sure that there's a good soil moisture will also help those installations as well. Some of the larger issues that we may have would be the dead snags that might be in some of your prescribed areas. A dead snag has a very good chance of catching fire and toppling across the fire break. That's where the chainsaw comes in as a good tool to walk around, fell those snags within the fire break, remove them to where they no longer become the issue that may allow your fire to escape and become a wildfire. So although there's no dead snags around this demonstration burn area, we have come across the cedar branch that's just a little bit too close to comfort to the burn area. If you all burn before or if you're about to burn, you're going to see just how fast a cedar tree can go up and we don't need a potential for a jump right here. So we're just going to go ahead and fell this branch just to be on the safe side. Of course, if you're running the chainsaw, you'll want some good chaps, proper safety equipment, hard hat, earmuffs, gloves and things along those lines. Ear protection very important for these large leaf blowers also. They can be quite noisy. It's very important when you're on a fire to have this equipment available, even though you may think that you've properly contained your fire breaks and things like that and prepared them. It's always good to have these on site with plenty of gasoline able to run these equipment for the long periods, especially for some of these longer burns, you may find yourself having to refill. Important to have enough gas on hand. You'll wear gloves throughout the fire, rake in and running other equipment can be pretty hard on the hands. So have a good pair of gloves. And it's important to keep care of your personnel or yourself if you happen to be the only one on that fire, if it's small enough just for you. Plenty of water, snacks on hand, things like that. Keep your crew in good shape, well hydrated and well nourished to where they don't become tired and essentially become harmed in themselves or a liability on the fire or even to others for that matter. When it comes to actually putting fire on the ground, it's very hard to beat a drip torch, especially when you're talking for larger burns, a drip torch can put a lot of fire on the ground in a hurry. That does well without a whole lot of effort. You can very simply walk along and put the fire out. You'll see some video of that later on. You can also get away with a simple propane torch. We'll do well also for smaller burns, but it's hard to beat the drip torch for an easier application of fire to the ground. Before we put that fire on the ground though, I can't stress the importance of a proper burn plan enough. In a burn plan, you are gonna list your burn permit in Alabama. The Alabama Forestry Commission has a telephone number and also a website that you can go to that helps to outline the requirements for the burn permit. You'll need to know the exact location and closest address and things like that as you call up the Forestry Commission. On this burn plan, we've got our burn site, our burn permit number, and things along the lines of the purpose or goal of the permit. Today it's to reduce this fine fuel, remove the feske from the landscape and spur on that native seed bank that's listed right here in terms of wildlife enhancement, a description of the burn area as far as the surface acreage, the topography, fire break locations. Also, the way you're gonna like this fire today, we're gonna get through very easily without a whole lot of effort with a backing fire. And then also the description of the forecast, whether it plays an enormous role in the success or failure and even the safety of a prescribed fire. And that could be the difference between reaching your goals or not and everyone coming home safe or not. Also, keeps care of neighboring properties, smoke, dispersion, things like that, all very important considerations with a prescribed fire. Also, I've got on here a nice equipment list that way we don't forget anything, nothing gets left behind. We make sure that we have the equipment available for us that day. Crew information, a checklist, and whether the conditions are right or not, everything's met. Also, an area for notes and the emergency contacts such as the volunteer fire department that's most local here. It's important to contact those folks first. They're probably going to get some phone calls regarding there's a fire on the Graham Farman Nature Center. Y'all gotta rush over there. And if I've called them ahead of time, I can save that equipment, save that effort in case someone actually does have a wildfire need. That fire crew isn't here on site having to report to a false wildfire. And then I also have my permit information on here, like I mentioned earlier, you'll get through the forestry commission. So once your burn plan is met, there's some other equipment that you'll be using on site that day of outside of just the equipment that I've already talked about. If you're going to do a lot of prescribed burning, it's very nice to have one of these little fire or weather meters. This particular one is made by the company Kestrel. It tells us a lot of information in terms of wind speed, local humidity and conditions, temperature, elevation, things along those lines. You can record a lot of useful information for your burn plan with one of these Kestrel units. Also on site the day of it's a good idea to have a rake. Sometimes we can have roots run and fires pop up that we can quickly rake out and remove debris with a good stout, heavy rake and whole combination like we have here. As far as fire maintenance and control, we have a tool here that's known as a flapper that someone inappropriately named. We do not flap fires with this. We can go around and mop up fires and put fire out where we don't necessarily want it going to just by simply smothering the fire. It's good to have flappers for that personnel. Today we'll have two folks on this burn, so we'll each have a flapper available to us. Also in terms of fire maintenance and mop up at the end of the day, a backpack does really well to put out small little areas. As does a UTV style spray tank. We'll have a UTV on site as well as a tractor that's rigged with a spray tank and that's essentially the basic equipment that you'll be utilizing throughout the day on a prescribed fire, both in preparation, the day of and after the fires complete for that prescribed burn at that time. So today's a classic example of really monitoring your burn conditions, making sure that you're doing things the right way and according to the burn plan. We've had to modify our burn plan. The forecast yesterday for the burn weather said we'd have a nice west wind at five to 10. Well, considering the topography that we have here on the ground farm and the way we sit in the valley, this wind is moving a lot more as a north-northwest wind. So we've modified the burn plan. It doesn't prohibit us from doing the burn, but we've modified the plan, told personnel about it. Everyone's on the same page and we're ready to light our backing fire, moving here more from a north to south orientation instead of from east to west. So here we're back nearly in the middle of our burn. Just finally finished our little bit of mop up. The burn lasted about three hours. We started at about 11 a.m. When the humidity got down to about 30%. Had a nice five mile per hour wind to carry that back and fire through the majority of the stand. And we've consumed pretty much all of that fine fuel. All of the fescue thatch has been consumed. That native seed bank that's here should have no trouble responding. We've got a rain coming through in just a few days. Gonna put some moisture back on the landscape and hopefully get a good response to some beneficial natives outside of the tall fescue that was here. We're in the middle of the plot here. This first section here is gonna be burnt on about a one to two year rotation. And you can see the fire break beyond me there. That next piece there, that four and a half acres will be burnt on a three to six year rotation. That allows for a little bit different vegetation type. A little different fire interval gives different cover and structure to the landscape that both turkey and whitetail deer will both greatly benefit from.