Burn Baby Burn

Every few days at the end of every summer I drive home from work and see something like this along the way.  The first couple of times I think "Oh No!  A Fire!", then I remember I live and have lived in the Willamette Valley since 1988.  I grew up in the Columbia Gorge where they grow a lot of wheat.  A field on fire is not a good thing.  If and when a field would catch on fire, all the other farms shut down and everyone goes to the farm where the field is burning.  Sometimes, it looks like a parade as all of the farm equipment moves from once place to the other.  People stop on the sides of the road and wave.  Restaurants from town make make lunches and take beer and water and sodas out to the workers.  It's a terrible thing when someone has a fire but the whole community comes together to help.

This is crop burning that was meant to happen.  It's the process of using fire to reduce or dispose of vegetative debris.  They do it all over the place down here.  I really don't know what the crops are. 

Some people hate it because of the "pollution".  I would imagine that these are the same people who don't have crops and don't need to manage their fields.  They might also be the same people who think we shouldn't log.  Did you know that logging actually helps reduce the risk of large wildfires?  I know what you're thinking "Duh Jennifer, if there are no logs, there are no trees to burn."  No!  It's because when an area is logged, the undergrowth is also removed and the undergrowth is what general fuels a forest fire.  Don't question me.

Anyway, back to my agricultural seminar.  I like the burned fields.  Here is one I saw yesterday:

In just a couple of weeks this field will be sprouting with green.  The whole place will be renewed.   Que the Lion King...The circle of life.....