Burning Pine; Burning Eyes

The other day a friend of mine sent a picture of me that he had found on his computer hard drive. He had taken it a couple of years ago when we were under-burning some ponderosa pine at a place called Stump Springs on the Dixie National Forest. I had a job as a “lighter,” which meant that I spent the day using a drip-torch and enjoying a walk in the woods. Unfortunately, the day would soon become less than enjoyable.

A prescribed fire is planned in such a way that the flames are always traveling away from the lighters. This is frequently accomplished by way of topography. That is, you start lighting at the top of the hill and burn your way to the bottom. That way, the fire, which travels uphill, is always moving away from you. The people who plan prescribed fires, the Burn Bosses, also keep careful track of the potential weather and the prevailing winds. A strong wind can, of course, push a fire downhill—straight at the lighters. The perfect situation is to burn from the top down with a slight uphill breeze to help push the fire (and the smoke) away.

On this day, there were probably eight or ten of us burning about 100 or 120 acres. It was a lot of work and, as the day grew long, the wind started to turn against us. By the late afternoon, our smoke was not going, but coming. After a while, it became so dense that I couldn't keep my eyes open. The wind was not strong enough, or low enough, to push the flames downhill, but it was enough to hold up the smoke and put us in the middle of it. It isn’t easy to walk through the woods wielding a drip torch while keeping your eyes closed.

When we finished the unit, the Burn Boss told a bunch of us to jump in his truck and drive around to the top to see if we could get out of the smoke. Some of the younger guys had been using some goggle-type eye protection and they were still able to see. I got into the passenger side of the six-pack with my hands over my face while one of the young guys drove. For probably 15 or 20 minutes, the tears streamed down as I ground my fists into my burning eyes. I wasn’t sure how long it would take to see again.

After a while, resting in the clear air and setting sun at the top of the unit my vision slowly returned. We were in a meadow just below Powell Point, the place from which John Wesley Powell supposedly scanned the entire Grand Staircase—from central Utah to the Arizona Strip. It was a place for clear vision and long views. Finally, everybody cracked the Gatorade and snacks and we drove back down. There was laughter in the truck then, and a sense of accomplishment. Of course . . . you know what they say . . . any day in the woods is better than a day in the office.