fireline cord
n.— «Martie Schramm, a spokesman for the firefighting effort, said the explosive teams lay what’s called a fireline cord along areas where a 1999 storm left piles of dead wood. The cord blasts the wood into tiny shards and slivers. Then, the team turns over the earth, which brings the added benefit of fertilizing the soil. “Essentially what it does is annihilate the blowdown fuel that we want to get rid of,” Schramm said. “It also leaves behind less of a human imprint than if we were using chain saws to get rid of that stuff.”» —“‘Zombies’ released without charges” Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minnesota) July 26, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
David from Plymouth, Wisconsin, wonders about the expression a cord of wood. The phrase goes back to the 17th century and has to do with using a cord to measure a specific quantity of stacked wood. This is part of a complete episode.
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