Got Marshmallows?

[Sparky-Watts]

Well, for the past 2 days and this morning, we've had a heckuva fire burning up north of me. Prairie grass, trees, farmland, etc. Anything in it's way is pretty much toast. It's already burned 5,000 acres (as of last night) and is still rolling, pushed by 30-35 mph winds. The fire is about 11 miles NNE of me, and I can see the smoke rolling past to the east. It's so smoky, the sun isn't shining. Wichita is 40 miles SE of the fire, and it's setting off smoke alarms there, and is so smoky downtown that people are calling in all kinds of fires where there aren't any. I know it's nothing yet like the fires in Texas and OK last month, nor is it anything like a forest fire, but it's still a bad thing....real bad.

 

[OutOfStep]

It's bad, but natural; most of the U.S. is in historically fire dependant zones. You can only supress them for so long, eventually the fuel load is just too high and nature wins.

Some of the grass fires can be worse than forest fires, it moves very fast very easily and with a very deep flame wall, and if its a high thatch grass is can turn on you and reburn into the black several times leaving you very sketchy evac routes. Crown fires can give you media worthy 400 foot tall flame wall but it typically will only get you if it spots in downslope and cuts you off while you're not paying attention.

That being said I love working grass fires, cutting lines in the mountains for forest fires sucks pretty bad. I prefer setting back fires to operating a pulaski any day/

 

[Sparky-Watts]

Yeah, but backfires don't work too well in 35+ mph winds......

Plus, we've been in a severe drought for over a year here, and some places for as long as 7 years, so it doesn't matter what the fuel, it's all very, very dry.