Finally we had a good day to burn.  Although it rained several days earlier the wind had dried out the field.  And the wind had slowed down enough for a burn to be safe.  Some wind is needed in order to facilitate the burn, because we use the back burn method, where a small fire is started into the wind, burning back toward the main fire.

If the wind is coming from the SE, the fire is started on the NW edge of the field.  Then a fire is started on the SE edge.  The wind pushes that fire along until it meets the fire from the NW edge, and then, since all of the material has burned at that point, the fire dissipates.

We were fortunate to have 2 Georgia Forestry Commissioner (GFC) rangers help us.  Once Bill lit the match to start the fire one of the rangers used a drip torch

Drip Torch

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walking around the field and literally dripping flaming fuel from the torch to burn the field.  It only took about 30 minutes for the entire 3 acre field to burn.

Around the perimeter of each field and line of trees we have disked a fire trail.  And between the food plot and the field we have disked another fire trail.  This helps to keep vegetation under control and make it easier to access various parts of the acreage.  Right before we plan a burn we disk these trails again so as to provide a break between fields that will help us to control the fire.  We plan to only burn several fields each year and to burn them all on a rotational basis.