Burning cattails

I paid for a week of camp from my labor of pulling cattails at a local campground one year as a 12 year old boy. Wow, what a job that was, stinky, slimy, slippery... whew.

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I do a bit of wildland fire in the NE part of our state. Those cattails can throw up a 30 ft. flame length. No exageration. Burning is a great way to improve the health of a marsh and is used by alot of game managers. Sounds like burning may be your solution, just be sure it's a calm day, no overhead fuels. Not sure how big of an area you got, but if you can mow a 10-15' buffer around it, that's always a good safeguard and of course have a way of pumping water BEFORE things get out of control. Air tankers and helicopters are expensive, but save you money in the long run.

What is the lowest temp that cattails will burn at? I would expect lower temps to throttle down the flames.

Here's an old photo of the farm before the cattails got started. The cattails are in scattered patches in the largest ponds. The 2 biggest patches might be 200' by 30' and are both on interior dikes so they can only go sideways into short grass. There will be some dead grass on the slopes but only short grass on the top so I'm not expecting it to run anywhere.

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