2014 Annual Field Fire April , 2014
Spring was quite late this year. We endured one of the coldest winters we have had for quite some time, including a snowstorm that dropped around 6 inches of snow on the last 2 days of March, closing school and giving everything a good soaking for well over a week. The cold wet weather continued to hold on into April. Conditions for our Annual Field Fire just weren't looking good at the end of March and early April.
April 10th was a beautiful day - lots of sunshine, with temperatures finally climbing into the 60's. It was also a bit on the breezy side. OK, it was WAY too windy for even thinking about burning fields with local weather stations recording gusts up around 30 MPH that afternoon. But something happened that day that will probably become a family story for years to come. Mom, the person who is always trying to throw cold water on all of our professional field-cleansing activities (FUN!!), decided to burn some papers on the above mentioned day. She dutifully was keeping watch of her small fire, carefully contained within a wire screen out behind her house, when someone pulled into the driveway out front. The someone was a person who just delivered some alfalfa seed to the barn and was now dropping off a receipt. Mom, never one to let a bill go unpaid any longer than necessary, went into the house to get her checkbook. When she came back out and wrote out the check, there was the sound of loud crackling and popping out behind the house. You can guess what happened - the little enclosed fire plus the wind caused the field behind her house to catch fire. And oh what a fire it was! The windy conditions quickly turned it into a huge wildfire. (hey, we were going to burn the field anyways). The fire quickly roared up the hill behind her house growing larger and more wild by the second, jumping our guard bands and mowed paths. Mom quickly called 911 which we all agreed later was the right thing to do. Mom also called Karen, who was at their church and Lee, who was already on his way home because it was such a nice day ("hey, it looks like someone is burning off a field," Lee said on his way home, "I wonder where it is?"). Fire companies were arriving about when Lee and Karen arrived. The fire was now over in the powerline and up on the top of the hill, and firemen were scrambling to get up there. Lee & Karen got the tractor out, filled the pump-up sprayer and some 5 gallon jugs with water, and headed up. Fortunately, once the fire crested the top of the hill it slowed down due to the wind slowing down on the back side of the hill. The firemen were able to contain it and put it out. All told, there were at least 5 fire companies that came - Meshoppen, Laceyville, Triton (Tunkhannock), Lake Carey, and Springville. We even had the state forestry folks here from DCNR. They were thinking about an aerial water drop but fortunately, it wasn't needed in the end. The story made the local newspaper and we'd guess about 25-30 acres were burned. April 19th was the day we celebrated Easter at Mom's and in the morning Lee burned off some of the top guard bands that had not been burned on the day of the big fire. On Monday Evening the 21st, Lee, Ben, and Alissa burned off the rest of the big section on top - under the watchful eyes of Mom & Karen. The grass was really starting to green up and there wasn't much of a breeze, making the burning slow and (yawn-uneventful) - certainly not as spectacular as the one Mom set off. We now know where we all get our pyrotechnic cravings. Mom has definitely set the example for all of us in the area of field burning - Go big or go home! |
The BIG "oops"Finishing it up
|