Students gain valuable
'hands-on' experience
APRIL 25. 2001 - WCC CAMPUS VOICE 19
By KRISTIN A. COTTLE
When forestry student
Jeremy Flowers heard his
instructor, Jim Slye, in FOR
240, Forest Protection, ask for
suggestions for lab sites.
Flowers immediately thought
of his uncle, Luke Potter.
Potter had recently bought
15 acres of land to add to his
farm holdings south of Seven
Springs, but the land was in
bad shape with scattered
timber and a thick understory
of layers of brush and briars
that needed to be cleaned up
before Potter could develop
the land.
Potter called Jim Slye,
forest management
technology instructor, to offer
the land as a lab experience
for students.
Slye enlisted the help of his
colleagues Dave Meador, and
Brian Weaver, instructor in
FWL 142, Wildlife
Management, and on
Wednesday, February 28,
2001, 16 students and the 3
instructors headed for Potter’s
land armed with drip torches,
fire rakes, Pulaskis
(pickaxes), and 5-gallon back
pack pumps of water.
Slye said, “First, we had to
determine weather conditions,
including wind speed, fuel
moisture, relative humidity,
and mixing height (how high
the smoke will rise and what
loft will remove smoke
efficiently without harm to
people or livestock).”
The students burned off a
downwind test line to
ascertain that the fire would
behave as they had planned.
They stripped in a head fire
at points about 66 feet apart
perpendicular to the wind,
using the drip torches.
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The drip torches contain
about a gallon and one-half
mixture of diesel fuel and
gasolinCj Slye said. “A wick
on the end of the torch ignites
the dripping fuel.”
Students monitored the fire
line to check for “jumps,” fire
that crossed the boundary.
They used the fire rakes and
Pulaskis to control jumping
and to mop up smoldering
snags and debris.
The 5-gallon backpack
pumps filled with water and a
tractor mounted with a 500-
gallon water pump also
helped to control jumps and
clean up the tract.
Slye said he and the
students had visited other
tracts and developed plans
depending on the landowners’
goals for the land.
He said that Potter’s land
will need a winter and
summer bum every couple of
years before the land is under
control.
Slye said the hands-on lab
enabled students “to
implement a prescribed bum”
rather than just hear about it
in lecture. “I’d like to do more
of these labs if we can arrange
them with the Forest Service
and find landowners willing
to allow students the
opportunity.”
Meador said the project is
an example of the experiences
students need before they
enter the workplace of forest
industry and land
management.
''Uie J^tne of *Ej(ce^nce'
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fiisliop D. L. McXntyre
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a
p
WCC foresty management technology student Marty Best
indicates that he is enjoying his work» burning away the brush
as a step in the "prescribed bum" exercise.
PHOTO: DAVE MEADOR
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