Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Burning off CRP

Helped a neighbor burn off 80 acres of dense crp ground today, heck of a struggle keeping it out of the timber

We are in these fires right now in western Ok. I spent two nights not sleeping because fire, and firemen on next section over, two days ago it had burned 35-k, and they are still going , today they were burning in Wheeler Tx., No way in hell would I burn my place off, after five years of these fires, it scare’s me to death. I don’t like moving cattle in a absolute panic to wheat fields !!! Good luck

Very dry in central Texas burn band still with 3 Inches this week be safe.pipeliner

We are wet here, still a pain keeping from getting it going in the river valley timbers. A foot or better of dry leaves can make for a sporty afternoon

Did you light it off with .223 tracers?

There’s still CRP?

Sounds like it would do a lot of good to burn the foot of leaves. Most people don't realize the frequency of fire played in prairies and forests. By excluding it for decades or even centuries we've created a nightmare of fuel loading and nutrient interruption that can only be fixed by burning. Fire is a natural process that needs to be incorporated into working lands. The interval most places need is 3-7 years of low intensity fire to maintain. Getting there is tricky but the sooner people realize it's the only way the better. To me the biggest draw back of burning and CRP mid contract management is the exclusion of fire during the nesting season, it cuts an already narrow window for the burn to do the most good. Anyone having an across the board anti fire mentality these days is ignorant. There is so much information out there that shows fire is a necessity and excluding it is only compounding the problem. Like most natural process people have screwed it up by forcing their way and now we have to right it.

I'll get off my soapbox now 😁

Great post Colorado1135. You can stay on your soapbox my friend because your words need to be heard and understood by so many. If you deal with the annual western fire chitshow you quickly learn how “greenie” politics and impotent leadership has turned our forests into potential firestorms from hell.

We spend an ungodly amount of money and we endanger our most precious resources fighting wild land fires. If we managed our forests properly we’d save billions of dollars and save lives. Our forests can’t be managed by the liberal courts but instead by using a variety of different techniques to control the fuel load….things like thinning, logging and controlled burning would be integral component. Without controlled burns and selective logging/thinning we wind up with overgrown and unhealthy forests that are prone to catastrophic fires.

There’s an old Ansell Adams picture that he’d taken from an overlook at Yellowstone (iirc) and then 100 years or so later a photographer took the same photo from the same perspective, etc. The difference in the health of the forest was evident in the contrast between the forest that was (relatively) untouched by man versus the overgrown, dense forest “managed” by man. IIRC…the second picture of the overgrown Yellowstone forest might’ve been taken just before the big fire there back in the 90’s?

Sometimes I wish there were more folks on that soapbox with you.

Relative sent me a story about junipers dying in N AZ. Aerial photos showing all this trees burning down.

Guess they don't realize a good number of those trees wouldn't be there if fire suppression tactics for the last 100 years had been different. If the fires had been allowed to burn, juniper starts would have been killed before getting mature enough to produce seed to start more junipers.


There's so many of the dang things in a lot of areas of the West they have programs to try to remove them. Not only do they change sagebrush/grassland habitat, they use a tremendous amount of groundwater and prevent some aquifers from recovering from the increasing number of wells going in.

We're due for a bad fire year.....................again...........................supposedly the second driest water year on record so far, and our rainy season is about done. Not going to be fun.

Fire or forest disruption is something the Ruffed Grouse Society has talked about for a long time up here.

It's a necessary event - be it natural or not.

Fire is a very productive ranch management tool, the 3 thing ranchers don't do enough of are Burn,Burn, Burn. Rio7

Blanket make sure you go through the burn looking for sheds when you are done. I bet you find a bunch.

Hate sheds, they cost us about thousands of $$$$ per year in tractor and truck tires, we pick everyone we see. Rio7

Burning is a great CRP management tool! IMO, the benefits are much greater than the other options for mid contract management.

Burning is something very rarely done here, no idea if it should be done or not.


Can't imagine being part of some of the burns I see done by some here.
Can't imagine letting acreage burn (and it only burns in the conditions that
easily let it go wild) without having my bunghole sucked halfway up to my throat.

We do some very small burns, very small, and they always make me nervous.

Trying to find a time thats dry enough, not too dry, and not windy.
Doesn't happen often.

I wanted to do that today but we got more rain last night. It doesn't look good for this year.

kwg

Worked with a gent who was a forestry expert in east Texas and worked with Champion Paper, developing pine production.
He had about a 3 acre patch of hardwoods, post, pin and red oak.
They went in and clear cut the hardwoods to plant pines.
Before they could get back in to.plant pine trees, they had created a lake.
Without the hardwoods in place, the water table rose like 6 feet!

To produce ONE POUND of pecans, a tree needs 3,000 gallons of water! 👀

We try to burn about 3500 acres every year, don't always get it done, due to weather, to wet, to windy, to green. Rio7

Beautiful pictures! I can hear it crackle just looking at them. If you ever need an extra have let me know, would love to get experience in a new ao.




I'm guessing that's how anti gun people would feel if they went to a shooting range. They would think that gunfire could erupt and kill everyone at any moment. All it takes is explaining the process, the safety measures in place and although yes it can be used for bad, the benefits provided far outweigh the bad in the hands of capable people. Fire is the same way, just need to educate the public.

burned 34 acres of timber Sunday. It needed it, wasnt the best burn, but better then nothing. Going to do another this winter