The Day We Created A Firenado!

Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Stutsman County North Dakota is home to as many as 35,000 breeding pairs of American White Pelicans. Depending on the year its the largest nesting colony of this species in the world.

The refuge is 4,385 acres of which about 3,000 acres are pristine native prairie. Forty five years ago today, April 15, 1980, John Sidle and I (by ourselves!!) conducted a prescribed burn on the northernmost 2000 acres of prairie at Chase Lake. Weather conditions were a tad windy, but temperature was acceptable as was humidity and there was barely a cloud in the sky.

John and I started at the northwest corner of the refuge with John running south along the boundary fence with a drip torch and me running east along that fence. The fire burned hot and fast and suddenly with a change in wind direction we had created a FireNado - a fire tornado!

I remember standing in awe watching it. The firenado twisted and twirled across the prairie like a real tornado and even gave off the "sounds like a train" sound of a real tornado. The cloud danced southeast across the grassland until it collided with the wetland vegetation surrounding the lake where it disappeared almost as quickly as it formed.

Later we extinguished the blaze with a back fire and two weeks later Chase Lake was the greenest native prairie for miles around in northwestern Stutsman County! What a day.

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