Heart Lake Prescribed Burn

Date: May 14, 2003

Heart Lake is located just north of Lac La Biche, Alberta. The objective of the prescribe burn was to eliminate top piles and the regenerating aspen in a cut block for the creation of bison habitat. The debris was 8 to 9 years old and the regenerating aspen was approximnately 4 metres tall. Grass still dominated the the surface layer (grass fuel loading is being determined) as it was not yet 'choked' out by canopy closure of the regenerating aspen.

The Wildland Fire Operations Research Group used this opportunity to collect fire behavior data related to top pile burning and to observe fire behaviour in a block dominated with grass. We utilised in-fire cameras to record fire spread between top piles in an attempt to capture the fire spread mechanism. We also used Thermal cubes to record fire intensity at set distances from debris piles. Both back fire rates of spread and within-pile rates of spread were recorded. This information will be posted on the website as it becomes available.

We would like to thank those who assisted us during the Heart Lake Prescribed Burn and those that included us on this project. This list includes Ferenc Scobie and Konrad Nygaard (SRD), Dennis Bostrum and Paula Bostrum (Heart Lake Band) plus firefighters, and Vince Eggleston and Claus Penno from ALPAC.

Small pile		Coniferous debris	Flame length	In-fire camera
	Pile-to-pile fire spread	5-metre flame length
Remains of pile		The animal you know!!