Backyard Campfires

Remember those memories of your childhood? Summer time spent around the campfire, telling stories, watching stars above, roasting hot dogs, and creating flaming marshmallows for those yummy but sticky s'mores. With families not taking those big vacations they were able to in years past, we are getting lots of questions about backyard campfires. If you already have a place for one, or are planning to have a campfire in your backyard hopefully we can help you do so safely.

First off, backyard campfires are considered by the fire code to be a recreational fire. They do not fall into the same category as yard debris burning, so even though yard debris burn season is closed right now, you can still have a backyard campfire. There may be a time where if the weather gets extremely dry that even recreational fires are banned, but right now they are allowed. If a total burn ban happens we will get the word out. If a backyard campfire is in your near future we offer this advice:

• Locate it well away from anything that can burn. It should be clear from trees, brush, landscaping, buildings, and fences. Dig the pit down a little and ring it with rocks or other non combustible material to help prevent fire spread. Keep the area clear around it so embers cannot escape and start unwanted fires. If you use a commercially made outdoor fire place the same advice is appropriate. Keep the area around it free of grass and anything that can burn.
  


• Use only small amounts of dry seasoned fire wood. We get dozens of complaint calls each year about smoke, and using dry fire wood will help you have a smoke free fire. Never burn treated outdoor wood, plastic, or garbage in your campfire.
  


• Be prepared and responsible for your fire. Have a garden hose and shovel handy to help control your fire and put it out when you are done. If you are having a campfire as part of a party at your home please make sure someone remains in control of the fire. This should be an adult who is not drinking and remains near the fire at all times.
  


• Use a spark screen over the fire pit so that embers and ash remain in the fire pit and not blowing into you or your neighbor's yard.
  


• When you are done make sure the fire is out. Completely soak the fire pit area with water and stir it with a shovel until no steam or smoke comes from it. Never leave the fire burning when you are done.
  

Agricultural Burning

With the spring backyard burn season ending last week we have been flooded with phone calls about agricultural burning. The big question has been "can I ag burn today even though backyard burning is closed?". We run into a number of issues in our rural areas where people are burning yard debris under the assumption that because they live in the "country" it is agricultural burning so hopefully this blog post will help answer those questions.

Here is the Oregon Department of Agriculture definition for agricultural burning (with hyper link to their website if you want more information):

"Agricultural Burning is the burning of any agriculture waste generated by an agricultural operation that uses, or intends to use, land primarily for the purpose of obtaining a profit by raising, harvesting, and selling crops or raising or selling animals (including poultry) or the products of animal husbandry. Prohibited materials, such as tires, cannot be burned even in an agricultural setting."

So basically to answer the question simply, it is only agricultural burning if you are burning debris from a farming operation that you profit from. Just because you live in the country you are not considered an agricultural burning operation by default, and even if you do operate a farm the material you are burning has to be part of the farming process to be considered agricultural burning. For instance a local hazelnut orchard cannot burn brush clippings from the yard outside of backyard burn season because they aren't burning the debris from the orchard itself, nor can someone with a couple of acres and a horse burn tree limbs under the agricultural burning rules.

So when can you burn your yard debris? Backyard burn season is determined by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and is open twice a year. Spring burn season runs from March 1 to June 15 and fall season starts October 1 and ends December 15th. Based on air quality testing DEQ determines day to day during these times if burning will be allowed, they then pass this on to us to update our open burning hot line (503.992.3242). During the summer months the Washington County Fire Defense Board will typically close all burning, even ag burning, for fire safety reasons. If the weather dries out early or stays dry longer this burn ban can be during the typical backyard burn season so it is important to always call the open burning hot line to find out if you can burn today.

The Oregonian's Blog of the Week

Typically my Saturday morning routine is to get up early, sit down in the backyard (weather permitting) with a glass of tea and read the Oregonian newspaper. With all of the breaking news alerts on your smart phones, Twitter posts, and web based news services, reading the paper for news may seem old fashioned to many, yet at the same time I have always enjoyed getting my news from the words I read in a paper that was in my hand at the time. There is just something about reading these stories, and the ability that the reporters and editors have to tell the story that makes print media just as vital and relevant as ever. Don't get me wrong, I love social media and believe in it as a communication tool, so much so in fact that Forest Grove Fire & Rescue was one of the first fire departments in Oregon to use sites like Twitter to get our message out; but how much detail can you really get out of a 140 character "tweet" compared to an entire column in the local paper.

I try and read the Oregonian every day at some point, but I always pay attention to the Saturday addition. For one because it's the weekend and I have more time to read, but mainly because on Saturday the Oregonian runs a special section called Community News that showcases local stories from the communities and cities in the Portland Metro Area. Last Saturday as I sat in my back yard and flipped through the pages I came to something that was suddenly familiar. It was our blog post about driveways and emergency vehicle access and it was listed as the "Blog Of The Week".

On behalf of Forest Grove Fire & Rescue, thank you to the staff at the Oregonian. Your staff and reporters have always been great to work with when they covered our emergency calls, they are always professional and do a first class job with the words they put together. Between the Forest Grove News Times, Hillsboro Argus, and the Oregonian we work with some pretty awesome print media reporters, photographers, and editors and we are always grateful for their coverage of our stories. There are also some great fire blogs out there, so we are especially honored by the selection as the Oregonian Blog of the Week.

Kitchen Fires

Even though the weather has been more like January then June, summer vacation will soon be upon us. Later this week, kids of all ages from the Forest Grove School District will turn in their last homework assignment, ride the bus home one last time, and be home again until September. For the older kids, especially if they are home without a parent, a summer responsibility might be to make their own meals. Hopefully when you talk to them about how to use the kitchen appliances you also consider safety a part of your chat.

Last week at the Fred Meyer Safety Fair, Cornelius Fire Department Lieutenant George Robards put on an excellent demonstration of how fast things can get out of hand in your kitchen. Using a standard sized cast iron skillet, George would heat up vegetable oil, simulating what happens when you leave the kitchen and stop paying attention to your cooking. Within minutes the oil would start to smoke eventually reaching a temperature so hot that the common cooking oil would ignite.

Small flames show up as the vegetable oil reaches it's automatic ignition temperature

Now a small fire in a pan can be a scary enough experience for most people. The key is to not react in the inappropriate way that can cause the small fire to get much larger. We all know that water can be an effective means of controlling some types of fire. Water does not work, and will actually make the fire conditions worse, when the fire involves a liquid such as vegetable oil. George continued his demonstration by carefully taking just one cup full of water and pouring it into the burning oil to show you the dangers of this often afterthought in an emergency.

The burning vegetable oil reacts violently when water is used to attempt to extinguish the fire

So what happened? At the time the vegetable oil ignited it was around 600 degrees. When you add the water, it instantly boils and the resulting steam explosion causes the vegetable oil to explode from the pan. This increases the surface area of the vegetable oil and can make for a very dangerous situation. Imagine the photo above inside your kitchen instead of the open air of the Fred Meyer parking lot, the damage to your home and the injuries to whoever puts the water on it would be devastating.

We offer these safety tips for your kitchen:

• Avoid wearing long sleeves and loose fitting clothes when you are cooking. These can drape into the burner and catch fire.
  
• Never leave the cooking unattended. Stay in the kitchen while you cook and pay attention to your cooking at all times.
  
• Keep the kitchen area clean, make sure that things that can burn like rags and food containers are well clear of things that get hot, like the toaster, coffee pot, and cook top.
  
• Before you start to cook make sure that you have a tight fitting lid and pot holder or oven mitt handy. If a fire happens in the pan, use a pot holder to carefully slide the pan lid into place (do not drop it). Turn the burner to the off position and call 9-1-1. Never attempt to carry a hot pan away from the cooking appliance.
  
• Have an ABC rated fire extinguisher ready to go in the kitchen. Talk to your family about how to use it and make sure that it is charged and accessible. Never use water on a grease fire.
  
• Even if you think the fire is out, call 9-1-1 and have us come check it out for you.
  
  

Can we get to your home to help you in an emergency?

Late last week a family in rural Forest Grove lost their shop building when it caught fire in the middle of the night. When firefighters arrived the building was completely involved with fire and had already collapsed. It took a dozen firefighters from FGF&R, Hillsboro, Gaston, and Cornelius to extinguish the flames and control the fire, however the situation could have been much worse.

Near the shop was another shop building, the family home, and a large amount of parked heavy construction vehicles and equipment, as well as the timbered woodlands that cover Blooming Fernhill. Had this fire occurred later in the summer when we typically get higher winds and the woods around us are considerably drier this could have easily spread up the hill. In these cases we need to get our equipment and firefighters in to fight the fire quickly so that we can control the spread. What we found last week with the shop fire was that the driveway was so steep with sharp turns, bare spots without gravel, and tightly lined with trees and brush, that we were only able to get one engine (with 4 firefighters) and a command vehicle to where the fire was. All of the other firefighters had to walk in from the main road, which took time and limited the amount of equipment that they could carry. In addition to this, when the fire was controlled we had very little room to turn our engine around.

So what can you do? Our driveway standards are pretty straightforward and are based on the Oregon Fire Code. There are a lot of things we look at in a driveway, but the 5 basic things include:

• Driveways that serve single homes need to be at least 12 feet wide and have a good solid all weather surface such as gravel, concrete, or asphalt. Multiple homes need to be 15 feet wide so that there is room for our engines and your neighbors to pass each other on the road. Make sure turns and corners aren't too tight and that the driveway isn't too steep.
  
• Cut back trees, limbs, and brush so that there is a clear height of 13 feet 6 inches for us to drive through. We hear all of the time that dump trucks can make it, why can't a fire engine? The reason is all of the equipment that we carry on top of our engines. From our emergency lights, radio antennas, and firefighting equipment all of this can be damaged by low hanging trees.
  
• If your driveway is really long (over 400 feet) help us by making wide spots every 400 feet where our fire engines can pass each other. On large fires we will need to bring multiple fire engines and water tenders that may be leaving the scene to go find a fire hydrant to fill with water and return.
  
• Is there a place to turnaround? Our engines and water tenders are quite long, so look at your driveway and determine if you could easily turnaround a big truck there. This is very important to us in times of large wild land fires where we are trying to defend homes from a forest fire. We need to be able to turnaround the engines quickly to get out if the fire becomes out of control and threatens the lives of our firefighters.
  
• Post your address, our green and white reflective address signs are free and can be ordered by calling the fire station at 503.992.3240.

If you need help call us, we would be happy to take a look at your driveway and help you determine what improvements you can make to help us.