FTLComm - Tisdale - September 15, 2000

This is the third fall we have published Ensign and the third fall we have pictures of fields of flames. Well we also have a spring burning season but in either case this process for reasons that relate more to economics than agricultural and environmental awareness. This farmer just North of Tisdale had produced large wind rows of the remains of this year's harvested crop, he piled these windrows so that they are light and ventilated and he has set them on fire with the wind blowing away from inhabited areas. The results are quite impressive, notice how little smoke is being produced. The formation of the piles and the care given to setting this up indicates that he thought this through and by getting the factors like wind and moisture content right the burning does the minimum damage to the soil and produces almost no smoke. But look at the colour of these flames, the temperature of these fires is clear from the image below, from your chem classes you will remember that red is a lower temperature flame, yellow is lower still while blue is very hot and white is hotter still. With oil prices being what they are and fossil fuel in limited supply look at this waste of heat and energy. Used to make electricity or dry alfalfa that heat could be used rather than wasted, we ought to be thinking about this.