Down here it's not the fire department that assists landowners with burning, it's the Ga Forestry Commission. For a small fee they will bring out a crawler and fire plow and plow around the burn area for you, then standby while you burn if you desire them to. You must call them before burning in order to secure a burn permit. They mostly take into consideration the wind and the relative humidity before issuing you a permit number, which is only valid for that day. And, they usually require the burn to be over with by nightfall, although under some conditions nighttime is the perfect time to do a slow burn because the humidity often rises after dark.

I do some controlled burns late in the winter, usually creating my own plowed perimeter with a tractor and heavy disc harrow, then starting the fire with a "firepot", which is an aluminum and brass container that contains a mixture of gasoline and diesel fuel and drips the burning mixture at intervals as you walk along. Sometimes we burn downwind, sometimes we do a back burn and let the fire burn slowly upwind. It's according to the amount of fuel present, and what we are attempting to kill, such as hardwood saplings. Left unburned, an open stand of pines will quickly degenerate into a useless jungle of hardwood saplings and briars, not a useful habitat for much of anything. You don't need to burn the areas every year. Usually once every two or three years is often enough. Then, eventually it may not even need it as often as that.

May God bless America and those who defend her.