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Combine fire!

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Bob Kerr

09-25-2007 07:02:01




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Funny how a half a gallon jug of drinking water can save a $400,000 combine! I was driving back from the woods with a load of firewood and came up on a combine going down the road with smoke rolling out the back. The guy must have noticed the smoke so he pulled over about the time I got there. He had 2 5 gallon buckets of water on board, but there wasn"t much left in them. I bet he had fires all day since it is so dry out. I grabbed my half full drinking water jug out of the truck and tossed it up to him and he got the last of the fire out. About 6 years ago in central Indiana there were field fires everywhere and quite a few combines burned also. This year is super dry here and I am suprised there haven"t been more fires. How is harvest going in the other areas around the country?

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Janicholson

09-25-2007 13:56:57




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 Re: Combine fire! in reply to Bob Kerr, 09-25-2007 07:02:01  
A neighbor and my dad (in 1961) were working on our combine, SP125 12', cutting a 20 of dry wheat. I was truck driver. Chaff fell onto the exhaust manifold, and the water jug was dry. The neighbor had consumed it. Sense he was loaded, He decided to "water" the chaff fire befor it destroyed the machine (good plan). As he ran out of down stream beer, the stream crossed Number one plug (metal connectors, no boots) he recieved at least 5 solid hits of 10000 volt Mag spark.
He ran to his house zipping on the fly.
It was 2 days before he came out to discuss reality.
It did put out the fire. JimN

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Al L. in Wisc.

09-25-2007 09:53:13




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 Re: Combine fire! in reply to Bob Kerr, 09-25-2007 07:02:01  
Bet he was glad you happened by and hadn't been very thirsty! With over 18" of rain in the last six weeks seems hard to believe the corn is drying down so fast and a rush to get silage corn. I see ruts in many fields. We had a killing frost over a week ago and I think it made for less corn silage and more shelled kernels than many thought. Good comments about fire extinguishers because by the time us (former) volunteer fire fighters get there, it is usually not an equipment fire anymore, but rather a cornfield/grass fire.

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Goose

09-25-2007 09:42:10




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 Re: Combine fire! in reply to Bob Kerr, 09-25-2007 07:02:01  
Way back when, I once owned a John Deere 105 combine.

I always said I made two mistakes with that combine. The first was when I bought it, and the second was when it got on fire I put the fire out. I should have let it burn and collected the insurance.

I got rid of a 55 and bought this 105. I hadn't been in the field two hours before I figured out I'd gotten rid of a better combine than I'd bought.

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Wardner

09-25-2007 07:27:10




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 Re: Combine fire! in reply to Bob Kerr, 09-25-2007 07:02:01  
Are the fires due to poor maintenance or just a normal operating hazard. One would think the manufacturers or aftermarket sources would supply built-in fire suppression systems.



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jeffcat

09-25-2007 08:09:05




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 Re: Combine fire! in reply to Wardner, 09-25-2007 07:27:10  
If you have lots of chaf blowing all over the place it will not take long till it builds up again. A "system" would only be good for one shot. How much would it cost to refill? Remember the old New Ideas "I think Im right" that had a power unit and you could put the whole grain or corn "Unit" on it by just driving into it. One of the neighbors had a couple of them and one had gas engine and the other was diesel. One of them "I think the gas one" fryed and they rebuilt it with a diesel engine. Combines should always carry a couple of ABCs and a couple of coolers. I see a lot of out of code ABC extiguishers at the flea market all the time. As long as the gauge is up and they weigh the correct weight they should be good. Cheap insurance! Don't forget even your tractor can go POOF too! This really hot dry fall weather has the humidity drop way down. Take your equipment to the shop every so often and blow them out! Just think of that cloud of crap as a ball of flames!
One year we had that problem with the blower to the hay loft. Self powered AC forage blower with the little 4 cyl. engine. Scares the crap out of ya the first time it happens! Lucky there was a shovel right there and my dad stired it up real quick.

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Bob Kerr

09-25-2007 07:55:27




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 Re: Combine fire! in reply to Wardner, 09-25-2007 07:27:10  
This one I think happened from soybean dust building up on the manifold and smouldering and then falling further down into a pile of chaff that had built up. I have heard of some getting started from a bad bearing getting hot and from just plain old sparks from the exhaust. If you think about it, they are prime sorces of getting a fire started. Heat source, fuel, and air movement. Those guys were really scrambling yesterday because we are supposed to get rain for the next couple of days. First rain here in over a week and the last rain we got was not much. Ground is dry as a bone 2 feet down. I think most plants are living on morning dew!

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TreySoTex

09-25-2007 15:28:37




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 Re: Combine fire! in reply to Bob Kerr, 09-25-2007 07:55:27  
Not having combine fires in So. Tex, we"ve got cotton strippers burning almost every day... some of the green boys are blaming it on a new setup from JD, electronics and hydraulics all massed directly behind the header- don"t know if its true, but I"d hate to be sitting on anything that decided to ignite underneath me...



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jakey756

09-25-2007 18:10:41




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 Re: Combine fire! in reply to TreySoTex, 09-25-2007 15:28:37  
Up here in northern Indiana harvest is goin pretty good. So far no major fires, we were doing silage earlier and didn't go a day with out terminal breakdowns, but thats behind us now. Hopefully no major fires this year. Have a safe harvest yall.



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