Carson City Fire Department chief explains this week's pile burning operations
A second round of pile burning is being conducted Wednesday by the Carson City Fire Department. The burn is being done in the area of Kings Canyon and Longview on the C Hill side.
Carson City Fire Department Chief Sean Slamon spoke with Carson Now this morning about the burning and concerns some readers have expressed regarding the timing of the burning and what factors go into making decisions to pile burn.
The chief explained that pile burning is a method of burning piles of collected dead vegetation that is 3 to 4 feet high and 3 to 4 feet wide.
"The vegetation is cleared around the burn piles before we initiate the burns. This is part of our fuels reduction program, that was cleared earlier this year, which allows burning of dried out vegetation that is stacked and then burned in a controlled environment."
Chief Slamon notes the pile burns are not "broadcast burns" where the ground and acres of fuel are being ignited. The fire remains confined to the piles and only the piles. See the video below or go here and go here.
Weather is one of the biggest factors in pile burns. Often these pile fires are done when rain and snow is in the forecast. Prior to burning, the Carson City Fire Department has an extremely detailed burn plan in place. The key points are "burn" and "no burn" situations, Slamon explained. The factors that influence the decision are:
— Wind speed and predicted wind speeds through the day
— Temperature
— Humidity levels
"We look at other factors, but these are three key points," he said. "We contact the National Weather Service in the morning for a spot weather forecast of the area we plan to pile burn. Yesterday we anticipate winds would increase late morning or early afternoon and per our plan, we extinguished the fires before the winds increased."
He notes the small burn piles planned all have the vegetation around them cleared, with no ignitable fuels around that could get away from crews.
"Another safety factor in place is we leave a crew on scene until the fires are completely extinguished and cold," said Chief Slamon. "It is staffed by a seasonal wild land fire crew that specialize in fuels reduction, from dead vegetation to controlled burns, so we have a small hand crew in place to conduct and monitor the burn, as well as a wild land fire engine on scene."
The burn plan the department follows also takes into consideration as to whether the fire could produce hot, loose embers. The chief said embers are part of the main levels that go into the decision of whether to burn: Wind speed, moisture, humidity and temperature.
"If there are factors that influence that, we do not conduct the burns," he said, noting the reason the fire department does the pile burns "is to prevent uncontrolled fires to become devastating fires, which we have seen throughout the western United States this year."