Controlled/
Prescribed Burns

That's me over there complete with drip torch, fire slapper (flapper) and a 40 pound water backpack.  I'm helping my brother, Dr. John Ortmann, with a controlled burn.  His degree is in rangeland management, so he gets to prescribe and try to control the burns.  It takes 2 hands to run the pump on the water backpack, 2 hands to use the fire slapper and one hand to use the drip torch, so you can see it's either a posed picture or I'm Superman.

By now some of you may have questions, so lets take them on one at a time.

What is a drip torch?
It has a steel tank and a short tube with a wick at the end.  You fill the tank with a 50/50 mix of gas and diesel, light the wick, and you can leave burning drops of fuel behind as you walk.

What is a fire slapper/flapper?
It is basically a handle with a length of rubber belt at the end.  Very effective at putting out small grass fires.

OK, so why are you doing this?
Before being settled by the white man much of the central U.S. was grass.  Trees were kept out except near water by frequent fires, which were important in maintaining the health of the prairie.
Without fire non-native trees, most common the Eastern Red Cedar, have invaded the grassland, reducing the amount of grass for cattle in ranch land and changing the habitat in parks and preserves.  We  are returning fire to the environment with controlled (usually) burns.  We do it in the spring, and in a few days or weeks the black ground will become golf course green.

For more information visit the Nature Conservatory's fire page

Back to Ortmann's

Me at Work
A few hours of this kind of work with 40 pounds of water on your back will burn some calories

Setting a line of fire
That black spot at the end point of the fire to the left of the picture is me with a drip torch.

Going good now
This picture was taken a few minutes after the one above.  The picture on the homepage was taken a few minutes after this one.

With the Fire Department
The local fire departments often come to make sure it is really going to be "controlled".  They were useful on this one because that's my truck and it is stuck in some slippery mud.  They were able to push me out.