10 Cool Things About Wild Grass Fires

I spent this afternoon fighting a wild grass fire in a pasture several mile northwest of Branson. This wasn’t the huge 40,000 acre blaze that’s been in the news lately (which is about 30 miles from here), but it was plenty big enough to roast all the marshmallows you could possible want. Here are 10 observations from today.

10. Park your vehicle on black grass, not brown grass. Black grass has been burned up, so flames won’t come back to where there is no fuel for the fire. If you park on not-yet-burned grass, the fire line could engulf your car. No, I didn’t learn this the hard way, but someone today almost did… twice (they’ll remain nameless… for now).

9. Bring a shovel to fight a grass fire. Yep, I forgot my shovel and was pretty much useless until I found one I could borrow. Why a shovel, you ask? You can beat small flames out if the wind is calm enough. But…

8. The shovel beat-down might spread the flame. The downward stroke of the shovel may push the flames out farther. Not a dangerous thing, but really frustrating.

7. The fire line is really hot, even when the wind is blowing it away from you. There were several times today that I had to step back because the heat was so intense. It commanded instant respect.

6. Wild grass fires in small communities are like funerals: you’d rather not have to be there, but everyone shows up and it becomes a fun social time. Only a handful (3 if I’m correct) of people there today owned land or cattle that were threatened by the fire. Most of the people – and there were a bunch – were just being good neighbors. That’s one of the special strengths of our community.

5. Water sprayer backpacks work way better than shovels. When I finally connected with the Branson Volunteer Fire Department, I was given a firefighting backpack, which holds 7 or 8 gallons of water and has a really cool sprayer. That beats down flames way better than a shovel.

4. Brush fire trucks work way better than water sprayer backpacks. A brush fire truck is a F350-sized rig with a 400 gallon water tank and several big hoses on the back, sprayers on the front, and heat shields underneath. That rig rocks.

3. The fire was so big, I didn’t know that my family was also there. This fire burned about 50 to 80 acres. As it turned out, my sister, my cousin, and several friends were on one end of the fire that I didn’t get to. I didn’t know they were there at all until I was chatting with the land owner when the fire was contained and he mentioned them. We were so involved in our own jobs that we were not even aware of each other’s presence. We were fighting the same battle, but on different fronts. There are tons of spiritual applications with this one. Hmmmmm…

2. The best thing to do when the wind picks up is sit back and enjoy the show. You can deal with wind or fire, but not both. God made nature an incredible thing. At one point I was about 30 yards away from a small twister that was right on the fire line. Heat from the flames seemed to intensify the twister: hot air rose in the middle of the twister, which drew more cold air (which was fuel) into the fire. That twister lasted at least 10 minutes, and all I could do was do stand on some black grass and watch. Trying to spray it down (even with a big rig) would have been futile and dangerous. It was awesome.

1. Pray for rain. There hasn’t been a decent rain around here for weeks. The grass that is there is extremely dry. Right now I’m preaching through Psalm 107, which is all about God rescuing people. Verse 35 reads “He turns a desert into a pool of water, dry land into springs of water.” We need God to rescue our land in a very physical and real way. Please pray for rain for our area.