Burning Down the House

Contrary to what a normal person would do, I came back to the property in the middle of winter. It has been a record snow year so far with 3 feet on the ground at least. February temperatures barely got above freezing in the day. And into March, 40’s are the norm in the day and nights are sinking into the 20’s. I am sure there are few spring snowstorms left in weatherman’s bag of tricks.

There is a plan to the madness though. There is one more piece of property beyond mine that shares the access road. No one lives there or even visits it beyond a check in once or twice a year. During one of these visits (and several times since), the owner asked me to clean up the property as it was a put off to future buyers, or at least an impediment to getting top dollar. One of the reasons I came back so early was to light a match to it.

I have delayed the burn because I was hoping that I could salvage some of the lumber for other projects. Lumber has gotten crazy expensive over the past year so reuse is the theme going forward. As ugly as that cabin was, it was sturdy. Which was strange since it looked like it was built with whatever (a.k.a. free) lumber could be hauled up the mountain or chopped down from the forest. In many cases, the boards were too short to cover the distance needed for the rafters and joists. The solution was to nail two together. Not a good solution because there were no supporting posts under the joints. The ends were just overlapped and nailed together. I think whatever the carpenter saved on lumber, he spent on nails, screws and wood glue. There was no way the cabin was coming down in a controlled fashion. 

Last year I was able to weaken the cabin a bit by taking a Sawzall to wall framing supports as much as I could but it was becoming more like a game of Jackass level Kerplunk. Hoping that each 2×4 I cut out wouldn’t bring the whole thing down on me. What I was pulling out was rotted or covered in mold. Just not worth the effort nor the risk of getting crushed.

Which brings us back to the problem at hand; getting rid of that old cabin. This was a good snow year, assuming you like snow. There were 6 ft drifts piled up around the cabin. Perfect for a safe burn. As the the year rolls on, the area dries up and becomes a tinder box around mid June. Even then, it is pretty stressful to burn anything in case a floating ember lands in a dry spot especially when the wind starts blowing.

I poured a punch of kerosene around the cabin and soaked a roll of paper towels to make a torch. The torch didn’t work as well as the soaked rag on a stick does on TV. I ended up soaking a disgustingly crusty futon mattress and lit it up. It was slow starting but ultimately it was a Whoo Hoo!!! level conflagration. It was a smoking pile of ashes in about an hour. I have to light it up again once more snow melts out but I am calling it a success.

Original

slow starting fire

All burned up

Here is a video of the burn climax I posted to YouTube….