The World Around You: Good fire verses bad fire – WBNews

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“Using Prescribed Fire in Oklahoma,” a publication of the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service and other state and federal agencies, lays out some important fire vocabulary.

Headfires, backfires, strip-headfires, and spot fires are useful methods for setting fires under various conditions. “Each fire type behaves differently and should be thoroughly understood before being used,” the manual states.

Here are abbreviated definitions of those types of blazes:

Headfires: Move with the wind, are most intense, have the highest rates-of-spread, have long flame lengths, and have high maximum temperatures. Headfires are effective in killing trees and shrubs or burning downed and dead trees. In general, headfires increase grasses and decrease woody plants.

Backfires: Move against the wind and are effective for burning fine fuels while reducing damage to woody plants and forbs. Backfires are safer for burning in less than optimum conditions, burning volatile fuels, preparing burned-in firebreaks, or in heavy fuel loads where extra control is necessary.

Strip-head fires and flank fires: These are varitions in types of ignition techniques to control fire intensity. They are used when backfires move too slowly, but a headfire would be undesirable or too dangerous.

Strip-head fire: A backfire is established and then, doubling the distance of this burned-in firebreak, a headfire is ignited. The process is repeated until the blackened areas meet.

Flank fires: These fires move at right angles to the wind and can be used in addition to backfires. This ignition technique should rarely be used by itself because slight wind shifts can turn a flank fire into a headfire without adequate means of control.

Spot ignition: Spot fires are when numerous spots are ignited within an entire area. Spots may be ignited at approximately the same time in a grid pattern or in strips of spot fires. Safety for the fire crew is especially important with this technique. This type of fire is often used on rangelands to control hardwoods or eastern redcedar because it can become very intense. Intensity of the fire can be controlled by density of the ignition spots.

For full information on prescribed burning contact your local Cooperative Extension Service office or Oklahoma Forestry Services at 405-522-6158.

— Kelly Bostian, Tulsa World