Today I was out chasing grass fires but this time, they were prescribed burns. A few days ago, Bill Doms gave me the heads up about the burning that might take place and I went and scouted out the location and talked with the NWR staff. I’m glad I did because today I was able to get closer to the fires and hang out with their crews when they were along the roads setting the fires.
They pretty much gave me the play by play about what was going to happen and where the best shots would be when the fires merged together.
I do have a slight sun burn like burn from the fire as the areas I was at, the heat was pretty insane but I was always up wind so I did not get smoked out. It was pretty intense to be standing right next to the field as the fire started up and the wind started rushing into the fire from my back and it really started to create it’s own wind field. I think it would be a great meso field test for Vortex2 to put a bunch of probe cars around something like that just to watch the wind fields shift.
When I left I stopped to talk to them about the next burn and as of right now, it’s all on hold until next week if we get some preceip. The crews were putting out some hot spots as I left and I did get some funny photos of two chain saws that got stuck in a tree that they were trying to cut down to keep it from falling on the roadway.
The first image is from where I got burned just from the heat coming off the fire. I was right on the fire line as they were setting the fires and when the field when up, I was worrying about shooting video and stills and not the heat. That was until the heat started to singe the hair on my right arm…
