The Seinfeld thread (or the thread about nothing)

[Flintstone]

I thought I'd put out a Public Service Announcement (please note this is 90% vent/rant and 99% sarcasm). It's that time of year, in certain parts of the world, where a young man's fancy turns to making a pile of stuff and setting it on fire. Yes, it's burn pile time!!! It's also stump burning time as well. So here are a few tips on how to endear yourself to your neighbors and local fire department -- and these tips are all based on actual recent events:

1. Make sure you pick a sufficiently windy day. Remember, fire likes oxygen, and burning embers of leaves, paper and other detritus truly enjoy being picked up by the wind and carried towards your home, your neighbors, a dry field, or better yet -- the woods by your house.
   
   
2. Make sure you do NOT put a fire line around the fire to contain it, or if you do, make sure it's only about an inch wide. Fire doesn't like to be contained, and you don't want your neighbors to think you can't handle a simple burn pile without something like a fire line to contain the burn.
   
   
3. This one is VERY important. A watched fire never burns, so wait for the dew to get off the ground in the morning, set your pile on fire around lunch time, then go in and eat, take a nap, and just generally ignore the burning pile. I can almost guarantee that when you go to check on your handiwork in a couple of hours, you'll be delighted to see how much your pile has burned down, and how close the fire is to your home, your neighbor's home, the woods in your back yard, etc.
   
   
4. If the fire does get away from you, don't call 911 right away; make a half-a$$ attempt at trying to put it out....a little more time of it burning out of control probably won't cost you much in the long run. Seriously, it's not like your closest fire department is probably at least 20 minutes away (especially since it's an all volunteer force and they have to drop what they're doing, get to the station for the tanker, gator, water packs, etc).
   
   
5. When the fire department gets there and gets the fire under control, make sure that after they've saved your house, your neighbor's house and most of the surrounding area, be sure to yell at them when they start to put out the start of the fire (e.g., a burning stump). It took you some time to get that stump to start burning, and most everything's been burned out around the stump, so let it keep going. It's not like an ember may fly out and manage to get something else burning. Plus, the fire department can always come back....they enjoy dropping everything in their life so that they can deal with your stupidity, it gives them purpose.
   
   As a side note, remember that plastics burn really well, and firefighters (as well as your neighbors) will enjoy having years shaved off their lives breathing in toxic smoke....so make sure you put those polypropene containers, tires and other synthetics in with the leaves, pine straw and green wood -- the smoke is beautiful looking, and goodness knows that I always enjoy breathing it in and smelling like Linden, New Jersey for the next couple of weeks (no disrespect to NJ'ers, it really is a beautiful state).
   
   
6. Lastly, if you're going to do a "controlled" burn on some acreage -- whether it's just a few acres or over 100 (last one of these was 200 acres). Make sure you do NOT tell your neighbors, do NOT give the fire department a heads-up, and do NOT tell your local forestry authority....people love to be surprised when they see smoke; I'm sure they won't send every pumper, tanker, gator and service vehicle (along with an ambulance crew to support the firefighters) out to your site. And if you're really lucky, a rookie firefighter won't recognize that this could be a possible controlled burn when they see it, and they'll do everything in their power to pour water on the stuff you're trying to burn.
   

Hey, I get it....stuff happens; but the above scenarios happen so regularly (especially around spring time) that the old timers basically tell us to just go sit at the fire station on a nice spring day in the afternoon, and hook up the trailers with the gators and make sure the tankers are ready to roll. It's 450 square miles of trees, hay fields and (increasingly) folks moving into 1 to 2 acre lots that the local farmers have sold into makeshift communities. There are relatively few hydrants, so we bring our own water to a fire and then look around for the closest ponds, or have the tankers drive several miles to a water source and shuttle the water to the fire. Bottom line, fire is serious business everywhere, but in an area where it's all volunteers, and water isn't readily available, things go from bad to worse very quickly.

Thanks for letting me put out my sarcastic PSA!