The regenerative and restorative properties of fire in native landscapes are detailed everywhere in conservation literature. One reads that the lack of fire has negatively impacted almost every landscape, because almost every landscape developed with periodic fires. After a while fire seems almost gentle, or nurturing. Anyone who has fought a fire, even a trash fire that got away, knows that fire is scary shit. Farmers, however, are fairly experienced and comfortable with fire. There is always a garbage pit, a pile of tree branches or some four year old hay bales that need burning. So with that experience informing my thoughts, in early 2017 I began to think about burning 23 acres of native grass hayland.

In early April I was wandering in that prairie trying to imagine how I could make a safe burn happen. There were grazed pastures on three sides which would be pretty easy to manage around, but the north side has a winding boundary with 37 acres of CRP I had planted several years before. The CRP was a tangled mass of tall grass, sweet clover and wormwood sage which would be difficult to manage around. How could I do a safe back burn? How many people would it take to complete a safe burn? How soon could I start preparing?

While I pondered this I knelt down to assess how ready the old foliage was to burn. The ground was still wet from recently melted snow and frost still in the ground. I grabbed a fistful of grass, took out some matches and lit it. The grass flared right up, and then things began to go horribly wrong. What had been a dead still day suddenly blew up a gust that started some surrounding grass on fire. As I calmly was stomping that out another gust and then another started other fires around my feet. It was suddenly beyond my ability to stomp out. Panicking a bit now, I took off my vest to help smother the flames. My vest, made of a witches brew of petrochemical derivatives, was fuel to the fire. Before my hands were encased in molten plastic I dropped the vest to survey the situation.

Though the fire was still only burning an area of 10-20 square feet it was evident that I could not put it out. I began to walk back to my pickup, perhaps 200 feet upwind, to drive to the neighbors while I called the fire in to the local fire department. I reached into my pants pocket for my phone, and realized that the phone was in my vest pocket, merrily burning away in the blackening landscape. Worse yet, when I got to the pickup I found that I had pulled the keys (which I almost never do) and they were also in my vest pocket. That would not have been so bad, but the keys to my Dodge were also plastic. More fuel for the fire. Not good.

As the fire expanded, more quickly now, the breeze became a steady 10 mph from the south, I considered my options. The neighborhood is fairly empty, and the only neighbor I knew would be home lived over two miles northwest of where I was. I began to walk. And as I walked I saw two things. First, the fire was backing steadily towards my pickup, which meant I might no longer have a vehicle when I returned. Second, the fire would soon reach the CRP, and we would see some fireworks.

As I walked north on the section line trail the fire hit the CRP to my left and it exploded. Flames shot 10-12 feet in the air and the burning front accelerated as bits of burning plants blew ahead and ignited new areas. Though I was walking on the dirt trail, I was just a few feet from the CRP and I was intimidated into crossing the fence to the east to put more distance between myself and the fire. Soon the fire jumped the trail and started crawling into the pasture, though I was staying ahead of it.

Both the fire and I had now passed the pasture to where the CRP bordered a neighbor’s 120 acre winter wheat field planted into the previous year’s stubble. Here was the biggest financial risk of the day; if the winter wheat sustained substantial damage we were talking real money. As I looked back it appeared the fire was unable to burn into the wheat, but I didn’t wait to see as I had only walked half a mile, and still had two miles to go.

The CRP field comes to a point on its north end, bordered by the section line trail on its east side and the curving shoreline of Anderson Lake on its northwest side. The only path forward was for the fire to burn into the shrubby growth along the lake. This slowed the fire down while I advanced ahead along the lakeshore far enough to lose sight of the fire. Eventually it would come north to another winter wheat field and I still had a mile and a half to walk. Time was of the essence, but health problems related to cancer treatments twelve years ago have limited my breathing to where I cannot run,. I am, however, walking like a son-of-a-bitch, now halfways to the neighbor’s. Finally, while still a half mile away, I saw a pickup stopped on the township road wondering who the crazy fool was walking across his alfalfa field. The neighbor, Derek Butler, figured it out and drove out to pick me up. Before he could speak I said, “Call the fire department and take me over to my hayland to see if I still have a pickup.

It had been a tough day. I had done something careless and stupid, and now I would get to see the results. I was at peace with paying for the fire department to come. I was at peace with paying Derek for any damage done to his winter wheat. I was past the rationalizations we all do when we fuck up to minimize our personal responsibility for the consequences of our actions. I was ready to bow my head and do some serious penance. However, my luck had changed, beginning with running into Derek.

First, Derek’s brother Andrew was on the Waubay Volunteer Fire Department, and Derek gave him a call. It turns out the entire crew was at a training exercise with all their equipment, so within 20 minutes I had the entire crew out on my prairie, hoses blazing.

Second, when Derek crested the hill south of my hayland I saw that my pickup was safe. The fire had burned underneath my pickup, but the grass on the knob where I had parked was short, and the fire was comparatively cool. The pickup smelled like smoke for a few weeks, but no real harm done.

Third, the damage to the winter wheat was so minimal that no recompense was necessary. The fire had burned all or part of two pieces of hayland, the CRP, a 40 acre pasture and the brush along the lake, but not an acre of any neighbor’s land.

Fourth, I provided great entertainment for the Waubay fire crew, the neighbors who came to see the show and the county emergence services manager (who teased me mercilessly), and provided a wonderful training exercise for the fire crew. The crew got to try out some new equipment in the field, ran all around the prairie hills containing borders and had everything wrapped up so quickly they were home in time for supper. The teasing was welcomed by me because by this time I welcomed a little humiliation. In the end the whole day was considered their scheduled training exercise and I was not charged for their work.

Finally to put a coda on the tale, I went into the county Farm Service Agency (FSA) the next week to report the fire. Judy, the employee in charge of CRP, looked over my file and asked only one question: “Did it all burn?” I told her it burned very well. She then told me that I was scheduled for mid-contract vegetation removal that year. With a smile she checked the metaphorical box and I was given credit for efficiency. Rather than have to pay Butlers to hay the CRP that summer and then destroy the bales, I was rewarded for my foolishness.

The saying is that “karma’s a bitch”. Karma is also sometimes a kind and generous companion. While I am afraid there is an overdrawn karma account that will need some serious deposits soon, all one can do in the face of such things is to bow humbly, smile and move on.