 The Mississippi Meadows prescribed burn was a moderately complex broadcast burn designed to improve wildlife habitat. The unit lies eight miles west of Deer River Minnesota and about a mile and a half west of the Ball Club housing area. The forest has a long history of burning similar meadows early in the spring just after snow melts in the meadows but while the witted areas surrounding the meadows remain snow covered. The snow generally assures the fire will not escape the meadow itself. The absolute latest date for burning meadows was set at May 7th because burns later in the spring increased the risk of escape and may adversely affect certain wildlife species which begin nesting in these meadows as the spring progresses. The Mississippi Meadows burn was carried out on May 5th 2005. The Mississippi Meadows prescribed burn we moved into this the first week of May. It was well into our fire season. We were having a lot of active fire at the same time that we were going to prescribe burn. May or may not be a problem depending on how the burns goes how you're set up to work with it etc. It's a grass model and we were burning about 200 acres that day and once you get your lines established from there on out it's pretty much a backing fire till it's well away from your line and then you can strip head or you may even be able to just perimeter fire and let it run and so all in all you're looking at about a four-hour engagement on your prescribed burn. Because of wet weather conditions and a poor dispersion index an early morning ignition was delayed and trigger points for initiation were developed should the weather conditions improve. The spot weather forecast at 11 o'clock came back favorable and the IC decided to light and evaluate a test fire and then go from there. Now let's get into our groups and complete the exercise in your student workbook.