1:38 p.m. EDT April 24, 2021
A prescribed fire in northeast Michigan intended to treat 1,086 acres on the Huron-Manistee National Forest escaped control Friday. The location of the prescribed was to be about four miles northeast of Hale, and south of Iargo Road between Allen and National Trout Pond Roads in Iosco County.
The goal of the project was to reduce hazardous fuels, restore ecosystem function in fire adapted vegetation, and enhance wildlife habitat. The vegetation in the planned area was Red Pine, Jack Pine and Oak forests.
In a statement on Saturday morning the Huron-Manistee National Forest said the wildfire had burned 6,100 acres. Friday night firefighters took advantage of cooler weather to make progress in constructing control lines on the perimeter. On Saturday that work will continue, aided by water-dropping helicopters.
On Friday afternoon a weather station north of the fire at Barton City recorded 9 to 14 mph winds gusting out of the west at 22 mph, while the relative humidity was in the low 20s — difficult conditions for a prescribed fire. The forecast for the area is more in favor of the firefighters. The National Weather Service predicts for Saturday southwest winds at 9 mph with relative humidity in the 40s and 50s. There is a chance of rain from late in the afternoon until midnight.
This story failed to mention there were 60 homes compelled to evacuate. Here is an aerial view of the burn, which clearly was not the intended results. https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2021/04/forest-services-prescribed-fire-in-iosco-county-fire-no-longer-spreading-officials-say.html
This is the kind of misguided effort that undermines RX fire and trust in the agencies. Many of the comments on the Huron Manistee FB page indicate there was a burn ban in the area, the conditions were already droughty, and it was not a good idea to burn anything that day.
Anyone who has firsthand RX fire experience will vouch for several truths 1) Ideal RX Fire conditions that will permit a clean burn and cause minimal smoke traffic for the neighbors is typically out near the ragged edge of the RX 2) The weather man is rarely right—Burn Boss is making an educated guess and hoping the weather is on the lesser side of the forecast 3)Even with the best of plans and resources in place its very hard to shut a burn down if it goes out of RX due to changing weather 4) Plenty of armchair quarterbacks, keyboard burnbosses, people that want to have their cake and eat it too, and folks that just are not happy unless they have something to complain about are endless especially when dealing with RX fire. Too many people suffer from Not In My Backyard virus not to be confused with any other virus. Until those folks put their time in in Basic and dress up in some shiny new Yellows and Greens, saddle up a pack, shelter, and radio and go suck some smoke and build black for a few shifts they should keep their uneducated inexperienced comments inside their heads and stop trying to tell those who know their jobs how to do their jobs
Well said!
Does the USFS have a duty to inform adjacent landowners of prescribed burn plans, especially if those properties lie downwind of those parcels to be burned? The USFS burned another area to the southeast of this burn a couple of weeks ago and never notified us as adjacent landowners.
Every planned fuel reduction by fire is published ahead of time — if only to attempt to reduce the umber of phone calls the USFS gets but also to alert locals and first responders that the fire is planned.
Idiots to start a fire with the sort of winds we had yesterday, coupled with such low humidity. Arrogant to think they could control it in that situation.
While we don’t know the parameters of the burn plan for this particular parcel, as a lifelong Michigander I can confidently say that those reported weather conditions must have been right on the cusp of pushing this outside of prescription. I don’t fault the burn boss(es), however, since forest higher ups are probably pushing to get the acres done that they wanted to do last season, but couldn’t because of the covid pause. Maybe more money in the fuels budget could have allowed more work to be done beforehand creating more secure control lines, or perhaps to allow for more holding resources to be available during the burn. Who really knows if any of that would have helped? Anyway, glad the weather seems to be cooperating.
Her. What a surprise. Another escaped fire.
We only hear about the escapes, we don’t see the thousands of successful fuel reductions done daily across the country. Escapes are rare.