fire fire

What a great day yesterday was. One of those spring days that just make you happy. And I had a really fun time flying around McArthur Lake and Boundary Creek Wildlife Management Areas on an air boat, conducting Canada goose nest surveys. The first thing I did was jump in the drivers seat and try my hand at driving an airboat! I didn't know what to expect but I got it pretty quickly. They are soo fun. You can drive through anything, cattails, shrubby veg or any kind of wetland veg, even drive over land if your real good. But you can only go forward so you have to be careful were you end up. I had to fly the thing over a beaver dam! Yikes. And then back down the other way too, Ouch. I didn't have a camera for the airboat but we did a control burn today at BCWMA and I have a few photos. This was pretty fun too. We burned about 15 acres and everything went off well.

First we burned a black line in areas with no natural barriers by burning a few feet and then putting it out. This acts as an outer barrier once the real fire gets started.

Then we start burning in a configuration that sets the fire to generally burn in towards itself. You can see the fire in the distance.

Putting out the outer edge.

We had two lighters burning toward a corner where they both have to meet at the exact same time. It was all easy cheesy till the wind picked up at the end and it started moving in the wrong direction and the flames and smoke were headed toward the lighters. But we did good. And then it was done - walla.