Speaking of burning corner posts of osage, here is a story for you. I used to log osage for the archery industry in the late 90’s / early 2000’s.
One day I was driving around with a farmer who had several miles of hedgerow. He was just showing me the extent of his rows before I started cruising them and marking the trees.
We got to one section of row with almost all the trees missing, and he said “grass fire went through that one a few years ago and burned them all down”
“So they were all standing dead?” I asked
“Nope all alive, mid fall, leaves were dropping” he replied.
I was not sure what to make of that, so I started asking questions.
He said that the grass fire went through the row, and he did not think much of it because the fire could not go anywhere. He just went back to whatever he was doing, and the next time he looked at that row days later almost all of the trees were gone. Well, not gone, just all fallen over every which-way, and many were still slow-smoldering at the bases. He said he was as shocked at the time as I was to hear him tell me that. Living trees, smoldered until they fell from just a quick grass fire.
I ended up cutting 50 or so very nice trees from his hedges that following winter.
One other funny thing that happened with him, one evening I was trying to get some tops cut up and it got dark so I put on a headlamp and kept working. I was a good half mile from the road, and all the sudden I see everything light up from headlights coming across the field. He pulls up in his truck and says “what the “heck” are you doing kid!?” I started to explain that I was just finishing up this top, blah blah blah, and he just cuts me off mid-sentence with a stern “NOPE”. I was confused and asked what the problem was. He says “you don’t run chainsaws after dark on my ground, pack it up and come back in the morning AFTER IT GETS LIGHT!” I thought about it for a brief moment, shook my head in the affirmative, and started packing up. He was actually a great guy to deal with, and I made him a bow from wood I cut on his property because I did so well there. But he was definitely not having any chainsawing after dark…