Did I do that?

One of my jobs with the Forest Service is to coordinate prescribed burning. In the fall that means I have to find the right time to burn all the slash piles, which means it needs to be wet enough that the piles wont spread,  but dry enough that they are still available to burn. It generally looks like this.

 

 

One day I lit a few piles below a road and then decided it might be a little too dry to burn, and didn’t light anymore. I watched them for a while and was satisfied that they wouldn’t spread but I knew they would need to be checked again. After checking another unit I started to head back to my piles below the road when a call came across the radio about a wildfire right where my piles were. I hoped it was just my piles but as I got closer I could see a small column and fire on the opposite side of the road. It looked more like this.

 

 

What I hadn’t expected was for embers from the piles to start fires in the drier fuels on the more open south facing aspect across the road. While this area was going to be a prescribed burn next year I did not have a burn plan to burn it on that day. In the shade my piles were just smoldering, but in the sun the fire was moving uphill and at least an acre in size. I knew once the sun got off the hill and the humidity levels came up the fire would pretty much go out, but I still had fire on the wrong side of the road and had to call for help to come put it out. When the sun went down two hours later the fire basically went out, but I felt incredibly embarrassed at not anticipating what in hindsight was very predictable fire behavior.