I have Burn Bossed hundreds of prescribed burns. Article said RH was at 16% in morning from weather station.
I can not believe a Burn plan would be written with an RH low enough that it was in prescription of Burn plan at that. Hopefully it was though so he is still covered by operating in the parameters of burn plan.
When you even hit 20% RH things really take off.
Wow! I could see how that would be a major disconnect from the top down. Most of the guys I work with view it as " This is the plan but we are gonna monitor it from start to finish and adjust the plan according to weather and fire behavior if necessary. "
Just want to add a few comments from my prescribed fire experience. Most, if not nearly all, of the Rx fires that I've participated in (either actually burning or looking at the plan) are written with an RH of 15% on the low end of the prescription. Most of the plans are written with a range of appropriate conditions. As you know, you also must be within your 'contain' parameters, so it's not like you can just rip it at 16%, 85 degrees, 8mph wind, and 10 hr fuel moistures at 9% just because all of these individual numbers are within the acceptable prescription range. (Fuel models in my area are commonly some mix of TU1, TU5, TL3, SB2).
I would be interested in knowing how the unit and the weather station locations compare, is the unit in the valley subject to inversions and better RH recovery while the station is higher up and exposed? Or maybe the locations are comparable, and in that case, what were the weather observations prior to the test fire and then during the burn? (I'd like to know the unit weather obs regardless to satisfy my curiosity and, of course, what was the spot weather forecast for the day).
I would also say that for the majority of the burns that I've been a part of, the writer and technical reviewer are not present for the burn. Some of this is due to the overwhelming backlog of planned burns or the lack of resources or acceptable burn windows while the writer is in that position. Often a fuels manager will plan, consult, and write maybe 10 or so burn plans in a year while only two or three are implemented. Stations with long-term staffing continuity will likely have more burns administered by the person who wrote the plan.
The burn boss is ultimately responsible for understanding and implementing the burn plan, adhering to the prescription, and meeting the desired outcome.
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