ERC (energy release component) = 29 (DIAL-UP WARNING)

The forest is soaked. I had fog and mixed precip all day (snow, sleet,
and rain). It is cold and wet. The energy release component (a number
related to the available energy per unit area within the flaming front
at the head of a fire, or growth potential of a fire) in the Deschutes
NF has plummeted today. It was a relatively low 48 this morning; it is
29 this evening.


Cold, low clouds early this morning


China Hat in clouds


Southeast view


A barn burns for the third day 22 miles to the south in Fort Rock Valley (very Faulknerian)


Light mixed precipitation at sunset (rain, snow, & sleet)


The mixed precip moves in at sunset (on the right)

Ah, you already know what I think of your pictures!

These are quietly wonderful, of the changing seasons, and the beauty that comes along with them...

How different from last year!

Thank you for taking us on this incredible ride!

:hi:

Weird Oregon summer.

:)

Short!

This time of year that is always a worry. If the hay has not been properly cured, it can generate enough heat from fermentation to combust. Nothing like having a bale in a pile of hundreds or thousands catch fire!

we once drove by a dairy farm that had a smoking barn. They had three tractors hefting large round bales out as fast as possible, carrying each out to different parts of the fields as far away as possible. It must have been a very poor job of curing and baling - when we drove back by several hours later after dark, there must have been a dozen of those big bales on fire and they were still pulling more out of the barn.

Fortunately it was beginning to rain and it rained for several days afterward. But when we drove by the same farm several weeks later, there were dead patches all over their pastures from where the hot bales had killed the grass roots.

Sorry for the rambling - I love your photos!

When we were buying hay straight out of the fields, we would loosely stack the bales for the first couple of weeks and check them for heating. If a bale felt hotter than the air temperature, we'd pull it out and use it first, before it got moldy began to ferment and create enough heat to burn. Nothing like shifting a load of hay for the third or fourth time in August when the temps are 90 +.

It works on the same principals as generating enough heat in a compost pile to "cook" the pile enough to kill the bad stuff. To really get good compost it must get up to a certain temperature (it's been long enough that I don't remember the numbers). And to make government approved compost for organic farms, the piles must be monitored and turned a certain number of times, getting up to temperature each time.

It could be a worse problem here in the Southeast than in the Northwest. Many years the race to get hay cut, cured and baled in between rain events can be hectic. This year was probably a bad one for the hay guys - we're now on our second week of the summer in which we did no have rain at least every other day. And the humidity is still high, so curing is slow.

There are information pages from almost every state agricultural department about wet hay fires - that is how much of a problem it is.

:hi: :hug: