This February, Lindsey and I attended the Chicago Wilderness prescription burn training at the Morton Arboretum. This month, we put our burn training to good use and joined Jared and the burn crew at the Chicago Botanic Garden for a woodland burn. I participated in prairie burns in Minnesota last spring, but this was my first woodland burn, so I was glad to gain more diverse fire experience.
We burned part of McDonald woods on the east side of the garden, and we needed an east wind to keep the smoke off of Green Bay Road. The wind was ~11 mph, but we were burning down in a gully which blocked the wind, so the fire crept very slowly. Overall, the woodland burn was much slower and patchier than the past prairie burns, but that was what I expected from the woods. I also got to use a drip torch for the first time, which was very fun!
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