Tell Deatrich
Guidelines for Firebreak preparation
Guidelines for Firebreak preparation

Electrical Line Fire Prep Guide

Loess Canyon Rangeland Alliance 

Rural Electric Pole preparation guidelines-  Updated 2020

We find these guidelines necessary for the following:

  1. To ensure the LCRA may be allowed to continue to conduct prescribed fire

  2. In the best interest of the members of the LCRA to continue to obtain insurance

  3. For the right standing of the LCRA among its community members

  4. For the safety of the community

  5. To help ensure the electrical security of the community in and around the operational area of the LCRA 

Level 1- Low and medium voltage lines(including tri-lines)

These are the most common lines which most landowners will encounter.  Our desired preparation for these lines are as follows:

  1. Mow or trim in a 6 foot radius around the pole down to ground level. 

  2. Rake litter and thatch away from the pole so that bare soil is prevalent next to the pole.

  3. In some cases, it may be advantageous to have qualified persons take down tri-line so as not to damage line coatings. 

  4. Any trees within 30 feet of the pole will be removed--OR-- if the REA has cut trees under the line and around poles, those areas may be deemed sufficient

  5. When building piles, it is recommended that the piles be moved 100 feet away from the line--OR--placed so that the wind direction on the burn day will push smoke and flames away from the line.

Level 2- High Voltage lines

Many times these lines will be higher and have two or three poles per location.  These lines service much larger areas and are considered essential to protect at a much greater cost. NPPD keeps the line trimmed 50 foot back.

  1. It is recommended that the fuel height be taken down to below 2 foot height 10 feet around the pole

  2. Mow or trim in a 5 foot radius around the pole down to ground level. 

  3. Rake litter and thatch away from the pole so that bare soil is prevalent next to the pole.

  4. Any trees within 75 feet of the pole will be removed.  

  5. When building piles, it is recommended that the piles be moved 100 feet away from the line--OR--placed so that the wind direction on the burn day will push smoke and flames away from the line.

  6. Communicating with the power company that services these lines will be necessary to ensure they are aware of the landowners intentions as soon as plans are made to begin a tree cutting project. 

Level 3- Concrete and Steel poles

  1. It is understood that the preparations under the lines and near the poles is the same for trees but that minimal mowing is needed since the poles are non combustible.

Procedures for the burn day

  1. Personnel will be assigned to check poles immediately after the area around the poles has burnt provided it is safe to do so.  

  2. Poles will be checked again after initial check once the burn is complete.

  3. Poles will be monitored along with regular mop up procedures thereafter.

  4. It is recommended that any poles that have been charred--or--are Level 2 lines be checked immediately the following morning to ensure no reignition has occurred.

  5. If desired by the landowner, poles may be treated with foam before and during the burn.

  6. Communication with the power company so they know when the burn is scheduled is essential.

Safety acknowledgements

  1. Safety around downed lines is paramount.

  2. At no time should any personnel drive over downed lines without the power company present and the situation deemed safe.

  3. Personnel should be aware of the risk of electric shock when spraying water near charged lines

  4. Personnel should be aware of overhead lines as the fire is burning.  

The Committee reserves the right to use good judgement and landowner discretion when applying these rules and may suspend a portion of the guidelines for special cases.


Guidelines for Firebreak preparation

Loess Canyon Firebreak Specifications - August 15, 2021

Live Eastern Red Cedar trees- There must be a minimum of a 150’ wide swath on the internal part of the burn unit (from fire line into the unit) that is free of cedar trees along the entire perimeter of the burn unit. Requiring a 300’ distance, if possible, on the downwind side of the burn unit.

Cutting and Stuffing cedar trees- Cutting and stuffing must not be done within 300’ of the fire line, inside or out.

Red Slash piles- All slash piles must be a least 300’ inside the burn unit, or 200’ outside the unit. Branches and single trees must be at least 100’ from the perimeter of the burn unit, inside or out.

Standing dead cedar trees- All “red” standing dead trees (with dead scales) within 200’ of the burn line, inside or out, must be removed.

Tree mulching near fire line- Trees must not be mulched within 50’ of the fire line, inside or out. Small cedars can be mulched beyond 50’ of the fire line, any cedars above 3’ should be removed to meet the 150’ wide swath requirement.

Mow line- A minimum distance of 20’ mow line with mowed grass thrown to the outside away from standing fuel load to be burned, or swathed and baled.

Disk line- A minimum distance of 40’ disk line is required in farmable ground, if possible, to do so.

**A soft cut-off date of February 1st, and a hard cut-off date of March 1st be set for all burn units to be ready to burn for the spring burn season. May 1st cut-off date for all Growing Season and Fall burn unit.

**These are minimum guidelines and actual firebreak preparation is at the discretion of the burn planner, burn association representatives, and burn boss. Landscapes with rugged canyons and heavy fuels such as cedar trees may require greater firebreak specification.

**If concerns are expressed that the burn unit does not meet the burn line specifications as stated above the inspection committee, burn boss and landowner will meet prior to burning the unit to discuss those concerns brought to attention. A majority vote will decide to continue or postpone that unit until the issues have been resolved.


Visit With Your Community

The Loess Canyons Rangeland Alliance Receives Grant from Nebraska Environmental Trust

Lincoln, NE – May 24, 2019 – The Loess Canyons Rangeland Alliance will receive $140,000 from the Nebraska Environmental Trust for the Grassland Stewardship with Prescribed Fire project. The Trust Board announced funding for the project at its meeting on April 4, 2019 in Lincoln. The project is one of 117 projects receiving $19,501,444 in grant awards from the Nebraska Environmental Trust this year.

The Loess Canyons is a 338,000-acre mosaic of largely unfragmented mixed-grass prairie and wooded canyons.  With deep, fertile soils, this landscape is a valuable forage resource where family-owned ranchers are stewards of the land, cattle and the 29 unique species of concern that thrive there. The Loess Canyons is identified as a Biologically Unique Landscape by the Nebraska Natural Legacy Project and as a focus area for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program. 

The canyon landscape has been overrun by invasive eastern red cedar trees; some properties are over 70% covered, causing a decline in Nebraska's grasslands. The Grassland Stewardship with Prescribed Fire project plans to assist landowners and burn associations to restore ecological resiliency and rangeland productivity in the Loess Canyons by empowering landowners with the knowledge, funds, and technical assistance to remove cedars, create firebreaks, defer grazing, and work with local burn associations to return fire to the ecosystem. Timing is critical to maintain the current synergy between landowners, burn associations, and resource professionals as they aspire toward the goal of burning 33,000 acres per year. 

The Loess Canyons Rangeland Alliance (LRCA), private landowners, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Twin Platte Natural Resources District, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and others have an effective and successful partnership in place to restore grasslands within the Loess Canyons. The LCRA seeks to expand this partnership to do over $1,000,000.00 worth of restoration, resulting in over 4,000 acres of invasive trees removed and to facilitate 30,000 acres of prescribed fire using grants and matching funds.

The Nebraska Legislature created the Nebraska Environmental Trust in 1992. Using revenue from the Nebraska Lottery, the Trust has provided over $305 million in grants to over 2,200 projects across the state. Anyone can apply for funding to protect habitat, improve water quality and establish recycling programs in Nebraska. The Nebraska Environmental Trust works to preserve, protect and restore our natural resources for future generations.

Great Plains Fire Summit

Several LCRA and NPFC members traveled to Ardmore, OK for the Great Plains Fire Summit. The Summit's goal was to "promote the use of prescribed fire by creating an opportunity for landowners, agencies and NGOs to network and discuss the benefits and effectiveness of prescribed burning for the sustainability of our plant, livestock and wildlife resources." The week was a great opportunity to spread awareness about prescribed fire in Nebraska and to learn from the experiences of other groups. Brian Teeter, Scott Stout, Quenton Mortensen, and Tell Deatrich attended the meeting. The opening session included reports from the state PBA's. Brian brought an entertaining and exciting report of all the amazing fire year we have had here in Nebraska. There were also several featured speakers during the opening session.

Steven "Torch" Miller brought an interesting report of prescribed fire in Florida. They burn lots of wetlands in Florida, meaning they actually burn on top of water. Some of their regular equipment includes an air boat and an amphibious tracked machine. He represented the Northeastern Area and Eastern Region where they have implemented a program where everyday is a burn day. Their employees must fill out a report on why they did NOT burn on that day, each day. Burning takes precedence over absolutely everything, even scheduled meetings, in his district. A good takeaway from his presentation was that we must help our neighbors that are resistant to fire and its risks realize that "choosing to do nothing has risks and consequences as well". Many people from all walks of life are in denial when it comes to the eminent threat that ERC presents to Nebraska's grasslands. I would encourage you to visit southernfireexchange.org to learn more about Prescribed Fire in the southeastern states.

Dirac Twidwell, from UNL, spoke on Coerced Resilience in Fire Management. We spent much of our time visiting with Dirac over meals and drinks while in Oklahoma and learned a lot from him. We are fortunate to have a the relationship with UNL that we do. I hate to say what the presentation was specifically about, but I wrote in my notes that coercive power is the least effective form of power and we experience that in the form of Burn Permits, social propaganda, neighbor hate and resistance and the 20, 20, 80 rule. These forms of coercion hold us back from being most effective when opportunity is most available, no matter how helpful or necessary we view these forms of coercion. There was much more to his presentation, but I will leave it at that for now.

John Wier from OSU discussed how many people use Liability as a scapegoat to resist using Prescribed Fire. John was able to get a stand alone Prescribed Fire insurance plan in the state of Oklahoma and make the landowners aware of this great new insurance that they could have so they would feel secure when conducting prescribed fire on their property. A few years later the insurance company dropped the offering because of low enrollment. People are just looking for excuses not to take action. We must look no further than our friends in the sandhills to see how people refuse to take action until it is much to late in the game.

There were several Breakout Sessions, of which I enjoyed a presentation on using social media to further inform the public and expound the benefits of Prescribed Fire. If you would like to help Moderate the LCRA's Facebook page, Youtube page, or start another social media outlet for us, please let me know. If you have suggestions on how to improve out web page, I am open to that as well.

I also enjoyed a session on wildfire and soil health. My takeaway from that session is that we live in a very resilient system that has been thriving under the coexistence grazing and fire at all different times of the year. Both can be tools for us in manipulating the rangeland if we continue to be students of the Range.

There were several other sessions that you may be interested in and you can find them listed on the ok-pba.org web page under events and click on the link for the Meeting Agenda or contact me. Scott Stout was featured in two sessions, one regarding forming a PBA and one with a panel of producers discussing how they use fire on their operations.

We went on a ranch tour to see the terrain, forage type, long term burn plan, and effect of prescribed fire in the Ardmore are. I think we should all be glad we don’t deal with large rocks, limited water, limited man power, and Ashe Juniper here in Nebraska. They conducted a small burn demonstration on 40 acres. It was very green and many attendees doubted that much would burn, but as we saw with our own fall burn, a growing season burn can be very effective, easy, and safe. I would encourage you to be more creative on the time of year that you could burn to achieve your management goals.

I have a few scattered thoughts brought about by the trip:

Why do we believe the cedar is here to stay? Are we so limited in our thinking that we refuse to believe we can restore our ranches to look as they did 50-70 years ago?

If we viewed cedar that same way we view a thistle there would be vastly different implications on how we manage and how our neighbor would manage. Now I recognize the financial problems this view implements, but imagining all the levels of society that view would impact makes it an intriguing proposition and is where I can see this headed if we are able to create an exclusion area in the Loess Canyons.

Do each of our members feel valued and excited about each burn and the role that they have? Is there something that we can reasonably do to ensure they do?

I was surprised that the government agencies were not well represented at the convention. The attendees seemed to be a majority of producers. The LCRA was the only PBA represented with a booth at the convention. I hope that this encourages you to continue to promote the benefits of prescribed fire and be an active member in a group that is making great gains in our area of ecological influence.