[Music] Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for north central Minnesota.

Closed captioning is made possible by Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport.

More information available at bemidjiairport.org.

Welcome to Lakeland Currents.

I'm your host Todd Haugen, our show is about firefighting.

We have a couple of prominent firefighters from our area to join us for Lakeland Currents today.

We have the Fire Chief from Bemidji, Justin Sherwood, with us and from the Minnesota DNR Ben Lang.

He's a forester and also is very much into fire fighting.

Welcome to Lakeland Currents gentlemen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning.

We've had this conversation several times before, but spring is the time that we get maybe especially concerned about fire especially when we talk about fires outside, like wildfire.

Why is that?

Why is it such a concern, especially in the spring?

So this time of year, you know, the snow is melting and people are getting out enjoying the weather and all the fuels from last summer and fall have died and they've cured out in the cold weather and the dry conditions and so they're very susceptible for fires and just the ability for them to catch on fire increases until they come back to life and green up in the summertime.

Ben it's especially concerning this year isn't it because as we record this show, it's a few weeks before people will be seeing it in April, but this winter we didn't get the snow to pack down all of that vegetative matter, right.

Yeah, correct.

We are in an El Nino this year and for this region of the country that usually means a warm dry winter and so we are way down on our snowpack this year, almost non-existent, and we are way above average for temperatures most of the winter and so those two things kind of combined.

And so we have fuels that are receptive to fires, you know, ready right now as we speak and we'll continue until things green up in late May, early June.

How do these wildfires start generally?

So there's a whole host of reasons that they start.

You know some of them are natural, lightning that'll happen later in the season, but 80 to 90% of fires in Minnesota are human cause.

So they start from campfires, ash, ash debris from boilers, maple syrup, people that have burned piles in the winter time that still are holding over some heat and on a warm, windy day they escape, you know, campfires.

And they can even be, you know, mechanical, you know, faulty brakes, exhausts, just a muffler in some tall grass with an ATV or UTV, those can all start fires this time of year.

It seems like we have fewer smokers today but it used to be I would often see, you know, burning cigarettes fly out car windows.

Yes and you're right there are few smokers, but those on really dry days, those can start fires, too, you know, somebody drops an ember in a tall patch of grass and you know if it's 25% relative humidity or less, you know, there's a good chance that that will start a fire.

Justin are firefighters with the Bemidji Fire Department fighting wildfires very often.

Yeah we, so Bemidji fire protects an area of 522 square miles and anytime a fire is reported in our area we're responding, structure or otherwise, and so a majority of the fires that Ben and his team are responding to we are also as well.

So, we work really close this time of year and throw as much resources as we can to help extinguish those things.

So again you're not just talking about the city limits of the city of Bemidji.

Correct, yeah.

So like I said, we cover what we say is 18 LGU's, 15 townships and 3 cities and for reference we go, Bemidji Fire will protect areas up to Tentstrike, Minnesota almost all the way down to Itasca State Park over to Solway and then the other direction near Cass Lake.

So we have a very, very large area.

It's a topic maybe for another day say, but that's one of the reasons that this Fire Association has been a discussion, right, because that's got to cost a lot of money.

Yeah, firefighting isn't cheap, but as we educate people in our community and try to do a better job of it, it's an insurance policy and you get what you pay for.

So we always say do you have an adequate amount of coverage.

If not, how do we make those changes and, you know, we invest in our community through resources, staffing, training, education, and so forth, and unfortunately all that stuff costs, comes at a cost.

And townships within your protection area contribute, don't they?

Yes and it's based off of property value.

But yes every single LGU, all 18 LGU's, contribute to our budget.

Okay.

So do you see very many wildfires, that is kind of the big concern at this time of year.

Do you work with that very often.

Again, only in the spring and in fall time.

Again, anytime that they're responding to a fire we too are also providing resources.

So yeah we have our high points definitely.

We're very concerned as well this time of year as we'll see a definite uptick in wildland fires and our primary response purpose is for the structure protection side.

So Minnesota DNR does the wildland, open land, forest stuff and then we respond to provide structure protection.

If and when we provide the adequate amount of protection then we will leave those posts and head into the interface with our friends and work very, very closely with them.

Normally at this time of year we see burning restrictions at some point and occasionally we might see a burning ban, that's a lot more rare it seems.

What's the difference between a burning ban and burning restrictions?

So burning restrictions go on, you know, we have our spring burning restrictions every year for the last 18-20 years and it's just a set time where we go the fire danger is higher, high, the potential is high, and so we're just going to kind of limit what you can burn.

We still do allow variance permits for agricultural reasons or construction reasons.

So we do have those variance permits available.

A burning or the other time we might have a restriction is if we are in a red flag warning or a fire critical warning where the weather is just so that, you know, we just want to limit that risk as much as we can.

A burning ban is a little bit different, that takes a commissioner's order to facilitate and that's when we do not allow any outdoor burning at all.

So we'll shut down campfires, burning permits, everything, almost everything.

It's very specific and it's very rare.

It's only happened twice since the mid- 70s, back in 76, and then in 2021.

We put a burning ban on at that time too, but we always hear the misconception, oh the DNR put on a burning ban and that's not the case, it's a restriction.

We're still allowing campfires and, you know, maple syrup boiling and stuff like that.

It's just we're not allowing the backyard debris burning to be done for a few weeks.

But people do need to be especially careful, even with those types of limited fire use.

Yeah I mean for if you're having a, if you're enjoying the weather and you're having a campfire in your backyard, make sure that that campfire is put out before you go to bed.

Make sure that you're checking your ashes from your maple syrup boiler or your outdoor wood boiler that you're using for heating and, you know, if you're dumping them in the corner of your garden make sure that there's no grass around them and those ashes are good and cold mixed with water and stirred up so.

I often wonder when people see that red flag warning attached to a weather forecast and I have to wonder if everybody really knows what that is.

You know I often wonder that too and I think that comes back to our positions, with anything education is key in we know in our in today's environment, especially with adults, we when we're asked if we understand something most of us will say yes because we're maybe ashamed or unsure and so yeah it's our job to continue to educate the public regardless of that.

It's no different than reminding someone of the speed limit, for instance.

So, yes, we must do a much better job of educating all the time.

Ben we were talking a little bit before we went on the air, the DNR sometimes does a controlled burn.

I'm not sure what term the DNR uses for it but why do you do that and isn't that dangerous, too?

Yeah so we call them prescribed burns and there is always a little bit of danger whenever you introduce fire onto the landscape but the DNR uses prescribed burn as a tool for silviculture, to regenerate trees, and keep the forest moving and progressing and keeping a healthy forest.

So we don't do a lot of them statewide, but we try, every forestry area tries to do a hand handful of them each year for a whole host of reasons, but it's for prepping the ground for seed so we can get young new seedlings established naturally.

Because a hundred years ago or so nature would have burned these areas on a regular basis.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know fire was very common on the landscape you know 100-150 years ago.

I mean, I'd say, you know, a lot of especially our pine ground burned every you know 5 to 10 years and there was just continuous fire kind of cleaning things up, rejuvenating the ground, keeping that shrub layer kind of low and in check.

And so over the last hundred years we've really done a good job of suppressing those fires and a lot of fuels and a lot of competition have built up in our forest over the years and so we're trying to, you know, kind of mimic that natural landscape as best we can.

You know we'll never do it completely cuz we have to be able to keep things in check and kind of keep things in the box as we call it so it doesn't go wild on us, but yeah, you know, just trying to having a few areas where we restore that natural process as close as we can.

Many of us have a little bit of land and some folks have a lot of bit, a lot of land, a lot of bit of land that has fuels that have built up, as you mentioned, Ben, I mean I guess it's maybe fairly obvious, but what should people do about that when you have a lot of brush and dead branches and things that are built up in your property.

I'm going to shoot to you on that cuz I'm a structure guy.

So there's a couple different things you can do.

I mean if it's not a large area, if it's your backyard, you can always pick up that debris, you can haul it to, you know, a place where they take that and they turn it into mulch.

You know that would probably be the number one thing that we'd say.

You can burn it in a pile when safe conditions.

If you have a larger tract of land I would highly suggest, you know, reaching out to Minnesota DNR and talking to our private forester and they'll set you up with a plan, you know, what your goals are for your forest and you can do a little bit of timber management.

The goal is to manage the land and maybe remove some of those overmature trees, you know, kind of reset that forest back into a healthy environment.

And to structures, Justin, I mean people can do things to try to safeguard their home and buildings from fires that might approach their property.

Yeah that's absolutely correct.

You know earlier in the show you mentioned about the dangers of wildfire and why we're so aggressive in attacking those fires and it is indeed because as our population grows in this area we're running out of space in the city, if you will, to place structures.

So now a lot of people are placing structures out in the forests and when we do that there's a number of things that we stress people to think about in cooperation with our DNR partners is you must maintain, you know, a driveway, for instance, that large structure fire trucks can get into.

In addition we want to ensure that the landscape is far enough away from the house.

That'll give you a buffer.

So there's a lot of good programs that the DNR has to help you with that but from the structure side we urge people, you know, to have asphalt shingles for instance or make sure that pine trees and other debris are far enough away from the structure so if a fire does burn up to that space your green grass is like a fire break.

In addition, you know, properly maintain your yard, keep it trimmed.

If you're able to, sprinkler your lawn, you know, those types of things.

But one of the biggest things that we're concerned about is access, access, access.

We're very aggressive in our area and we're fortunate enough to have full-time firefighters on staff so we're able to get to your location quite quickly.

However if we're unable to access your property, you know, that becomes very, very challenging.

Sure.

So if the trees in your yard have started to lean over in that direction, they change of course over time.

Correct, yeah.

If you start to see, you know, shrubbery or trees encroaching on your structure let's talk to someone.

Talk to someone in the DNR forestry division or call a professional landscaper and let's get those things removed and we can work with them.

I know Ben and his team can work with them and again like I mentioned before, there's a lot of programs out there that people can make access to help them in fire planning.

And I think it's called, is it called, Firewise?

It's called Firewise.

So yes and there's lots of grants and opportunities.

We can have people come out and do an assessment of your house and they'll say oh you know you need 30-40 feet of defensible space around your house, you know, no shrubs, no trees.

You know you've stacked your firewood right up against your house, that's probably not the best idea.

If fire comes it usually shoots a lot of embers and they can get into that fire, that firewood, and now you've got a heat source right on the edge of your house.

You know it talks about egress/ingress.

And ingress/egress that's huge for even us getting in, you know, we have some bigger equipment and if trees are leaning over your driveway or you've allowed the trees and the brush to come right up to it and if we don't have the space then we can't come down and help.

You talked about egress and not only for the occupants of the structure but also for us and I know one of the things that the DNR always stresses is having an egress plan and so in large wildland fires we'll actually try to back our vehicles in so we can quickly escape.

So if we don't have a way to access or do that, you know, that may hamper our response.

Sure.

You mentioned asphalt shingles, are those desirable over what maybe cedar shakes.

Yeah I was making reference to that instead of like a wood shake, we all love the look of wood shakes right, they're natural, however they too dry out and if we don't properly maintain them they become another a source of ignition and so asphalt shingles would be a preferred way to go because they are affordable.

However, you know, steel is also ideal, but very, very costly.

Steel and you know a tile roof is very uncommon in this area but that's probably a pretty fireproof roof I would think.

Yeah correct.

The other thing is regardless of the roof type we all have, some of us have hills and valleys in our structures and we need to maintain those areas, too.

So getting the pine debris, tree debris, off of there annually so that's important.

Because I see sparks.

I mean usually from our chimney, well we do have a fireplace.

I don't see sparks come out of there very often but I always think well sparks could come out of there if you're burning pine needles or something for whatever reason pine branch and if it lands on those asphalt shingles, I mean I know they burn, but they're probably somewhat resistant to burning.

Right.

Yeah, I don't think the asphalt shingle itself will ignite from an ember, it's the debris on the shingle or in those those valleys that we' be concerned about.

Right.

So then on to more about structures, Justin, for people that just general fire danger and it's a danger year round, people need to keep up their smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors, right?

Yep, it's a year-long effort.

Smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors are a very inexpensive tool that provide around the clock safety.

And speaking specifically about smoke detectors, smoke detectors alert us to a fire and like when we teach the young people in our community smoke detectors are most important at night when we sleep.

When we sleep our noses also take a break if you will, we're unable to smell smoke, and those detectors act as a smelling device, I'm trying to be as elementary as I can, a smelling device that alerts the occupant, you know, grabs their ear to a danger and now gives them enough time to escape to a safe place.

With, you know, we stress people to test their detectors monthly, change their batteries every time change or as needed and so maintenance of those inexpensive tools pay dividends in the long run.

I've seen those new detectors now that have like a 10-year battery in them and just you don't ever change it, you just have to change the whole thing.

Correct.

Yeah it's becoming very common in having those lithium ion batteries, they're actually sealed in the detector, so people can't remove the battery for whatever reason and they stay in the battery for the life of the detector.

So while we don't have to change the battery, we still must test them because it's a human-made device and they do have faults.

And one of the benefits of that new way of doing smoke detectors is that detectors don't last forever.

If you've been putting new batteries in your detector and it's like 25 years old, it might not be effective anymore.

Correct.

We stress that detectors be changed out at a maximum of every 10 years or so or if they fail.

And you can always tell that a detector is old by the color of it.

If it's not that bright white, it's time to go.

Right, so keep those up to date, keep monitoring.

Yeah and you know one other thing, and I always will push it, they need to be in our areas in the areas that we sleep, okay, so common areas like hallways and bedrooms.

We don't need them in living rooms or kitchens because when we're in those spaces for the most part we're up, we're alert, we're conscious, right.

But we want those in those sleeping areas.

But speaking of kitchens, those are the most dangerous fire area in most homes, aren't they?

Correct.

Like you know Ben made reference to the most common way that a wildfire starts, structure fires, at least our responses in Bemidji and the state of Minnesota is caused by cooking.

So the number one cause of fires in Minnesota is cooking.

Ben, back outdoors again, I see people that have piles of branches that build up and they pile them for sometimes years and you can have a huge pile of branches and maybe they mean to burn them every winter when there's snow but often times they don't get around to it or they think well the rabbits are living in there I don't want to deprive them of their home, but I always think boy if that thing starts on fire it's going to be a heck of a fire.

Oh absolutely.

I mean you're condensing a fuel source into one location and, you know, if something happens, we call it a jackpot is when you get a buildup like that and so that's definitely a concern.

And probably the other concern is you pile up that pile and you let it sit for five, six years, it's rotten in the middle and damp and it doesn't burn as well and so you don't get a nice clean burn and so you have fuels that are partially burnt, they're probably still holding heat and you don't even realize it and then you go off to work and you get a warm windy day and it gets the right wind and you start getting air and oxygen in there and it'll come back to life when you're not there and could escape.

And so yeah if if you're going to burn a pile do it, you know, not immediately after the branches are on the ground because they're usually still green and they don't burn well either, but within a year year or two at the most.

If it's been longer than that you might want to start thinking about another way to remove that pile cuz it'll get punky on you, not burn as well.

And when you do burn it, it would be a good idea to take the hose and really soak it after it's all done, right, make sure it's all the way out.

Absolutely.

If you have the, if it's close enough to your house and you can get a hose to reach it.

I mean obviously that's the best way.

I know a lot of times the piles are way back, you know, behind the house and that's where we promote kind of that winter burnings cuz you have snow around.

As the pile cooks down and becomes embers and looks like it's out, you can mix that snow right in there with the pile and stir it all up, get it all exposed, and make sure that you're checking in and now it's cold, it's cold everywhere.

Cuz even in your wood stove or fireplace if you use something like that you know that those coals they keep burning for several days after you've had that last fire.

Yeah I mean I've been on fires where they lit the pile mid to late November and in April it came back to life and started up.

So they'll sit there for four, five, six months sometimes and just kind of lay low but they're not out, they're just kind of sitting there, you know, chunking along and still alive and they can come out at any time.

So if they do that and a fire starts somewhere around your property and you think that's not a controlled fire, there's nobody around here, that's burning it's not supposed to be, should a person call the fire department first or try to put it out first or what should you do?

Well we both would say call 911.

Yes our county dispatchers will dispatch both resources at the same time.

We don't want if you want to put out a fire you should have thought about that prior to lighting.

Ben made reference to it, you made reference to it, about planning, you know, pre-planning.

Have that hose out there, have heavy equipment, have a plan in case, but the minute that a fire starts it's usually beyond our control, the individual's control, so we want to call 911.

Early notification is absolutely key, absolutely key.

It's only happened to me once, but it was my neighbor's yard and he evidently had dumped some ashes that still had live coals and a little fire started and I saw it was burning and I knew it wasn't supposed to be and all these thoughts went through my mind pretty quickly.

I thought well I need to put that out but I need to report it.

I don't want to get him in trouble, I mean I don't know what this might cost him to have firefighters come out here and fight this, but the biggest concern is that fire getting out of control.

So I made the call.

I don't always do the right thing but I think I did that time.

Yeah and you did make the call and to Justin's reference if you call early and you keep it small.

If there is you know a bill or a citation issued because of that, chances are because if you called early it'll be smaller and it'll be less significant, so you know when in doubt call, you know, and jump on that fire early to keep it in check as much as you can.

But if there can be a significant cost though, if firefighting effort is necessary for a fire that you let get away.

Absolutely, especially during those times of critical fire weather like Ben referenced earlier in the show, we put out a ton of messages about no burning, please don't burn during the day get a permit so on and so forth and if someone steps outside of those recommendations and a fire gets away from them it can be very costly, not only for structure resources, but for DNR resources, and the possibility of air resources, so the homeowner becomes responsible.

Your burning permit will will prescribe that if it's okay to, you know, if you're able to get a burning permit it'll say that you should burn after sundown or late in the day and part of that is that the wind typically goes down at that time of day, right.

Yep so right now it's 6 p.m. and after and so the thought process behind that is that, you know, as you get closer to 6 p.m. the sun's going down, it's getting cooler, the wind is going down like you said, the humidities are usually going up at that point as well.

So we have a reference, we call it our peak burning hours are usually between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. and that's when fires typically happen the most, that's when they're the most active and when they're burning the most frequently and so we try to, like I said, limit people and that risk exposure to them and so we say don't light after 6 pm.

and I know there are people that come in and go, well I want to burn all day because that's when I'm home and it gets dark out, but we really do that, you know, as risk mitigation to kind of keep things, you know, as controlled as best we can.

And so we're trying to look out for everybody on that one.

But people should still be aware of the forecast because I mean a cold front that comes through at midnight could kick that wind up pretty significantly.

Yeah, absolutely, you should be looking, you know, at least the next day or maybe two or three days out after you burn a burn a pile because, you know, we do get, this time of year especially, we'll have fronts that come through that are very dry and that humidity that might not recover at night and so it'll stay down you know in the 40 to 50% range which typically goes up to 90 to 100% and that's when you get the dew on the ground and so, you know, if you light your pile at 6 clock thinking that, you know, it's going to calm down and it's just going to slowly go out, the winds might stay up or the humidity might not come up and all of a sudden at 10 o'clock at night it becomes active again.

Gentlemen we have less than a minute left of our show.

Final words before we wrap up, Justin.

You know speaking specifically about wildfire and burning I think it's important for me to continue to educate our public that burning permits are always required within the city limits and it isn't necessarily because of the dangers but it's to also give Bemidji Fire an idea where a prescribed or planned burn is occurring.

Within the city limits, you know, we're tight packed or tightly packed here and so we like permits so we know what's going on and so if we get a complaint we know exactly where we're going.

I will always say use common sense in everything you do but specifically this time of year with wildfire.

Yeah and I guess just want to reiterate use common sense, you know.

Go enjoy the outdoors, that's what we want you to do, just have a little idea of what the weather conditions are and those potentials and stay safe out there.

Ben Lang, Justin Sherwood, thanks for joining us for Lakeland Currents.

Thank you.

Thanks for watching and thanks for your support of Lakeland PBS.