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F350Lawman
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 411 Goshen, NY
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2003-09-05          63261

I have been trying to burn a pile of brush that is maybe 10' by 20" and 6 ' high. With all the rain I can't get it to go. The brush is fairly dry with some green stuff but I've never had this kind of problem. I must have used 5 gallons of kerosenne and a gallon of diesel but nothing!
It's out there smoldering with afew greayed over edges but that's it.

Any ideas, anyone have any napalm? :)


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kwschumm
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 5764 NW Oregon
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2003-09-05          63262

If you have any old plywood around I've found that it's very useful to throw it on top of a slash pile after lighting it. It keeps the wind and water away and reflects the heat back into the pile to keep the fire going. I've burned some big piles on some very wet and windy days that way and once it gets cooking you'll have a huge pile of intensely hot red coals going. Of course I was lucky (?) enough to have a bunch of leftover construction debris on-site after building our house. ....

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AC5ZO
Join Date: Jul 2003
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2003-09-05          63264

I don't know if they are legal to use anymore, but we used to get tough brush piles going with an old vehicle tire. They burn very hot and will get most any pile going.

Also, if the pile is not dense enough, it will have trouble sustaining a flame. Push it together with your FEL and it should help. ....

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Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999
Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
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2003-09-05          63265

My two sure-fire methods are;

1) douse it (or at least part of it) in gasoline then toss in a lit safety flare, or,

2) use a propane 'tiger' torch, the big 250,000 btu burners on the end of a 3' wand that they use for patching flat roofing.

Best of luck. ....

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bmocad
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 52 Rosholt WI
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2003-09-05          63271

I use a small torch purchased from the Farm& Fleet store.
Dry old boards light the boards first& slowy keep feeding boards and brush. It will burn. ....

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F350Lawman
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 411 Goshen, NY
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2003-09-05          63276

Well after realizing it was going to smolder for days or I was either going to have to water it down or get it to burn, I tried again. I got a small flame going, covered it with more brush and then hit it with another 1/2 gallon of kerosene.

Funny, how a little change in the structure of the pile turned the smoldering mess into an inferno :)

She's history now!

I don't think the tire would have been an option, this pile is in front of my property near the road and my house. That thick black smoke could close the road if the wind shifted and my wife would have killed my if it headed for the house!

thanks everyone. ....

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TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2003-09-06          63280

It's good that it's done. Guess it's after the fact now, but some volunteer fire departments will do burns for residents as part of fire crew training. Cripes, we've even flushed out drilled wells and been asked to fill a swimming pool as part of training.

Around here you'd need a permit for such a burn and likely would need a fire warden on the site. At the moment we may still have a fire ban. Good to know of any rules that apply before starting.

Structure can be everything in fires. I just figured out how backfires work. The idea is that big fires draw air from the all around and create winds towards the fire. If you get down wind and close enough, a fire can be lit that the main fire will draw towards itself. In theory, when the two fires collide, there's nothing left to burn and they both go out. Of course, saying and doing are different things and us municipal volunteer fighters aren't in the buz of backfires.
....

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F350Lawman
Join Date: Jul 2003
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2003-09-06          63283

Here you need a permit. It is free, good for 1 week and basically just has some simple rules/instructions. You just call the fire station and tell them you're burning. I give them my cell phone this way if someone calls in a fire at my location they can contact me and see if I'm OK.

Without burning this year would have cost many hundreds to chip or cart away not to mention the time involved. I am not a fan of putting huge, dry dead brush piles in my woods sot hat wouldn't have been an option. ....

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kwschumm
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 5764 NW Oregon
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2003-09-06          63294

Where I am you don't need a permit, you just need to call the burn line to see if burning is approved for that day. Of course that's a mixed blessing. We had a new neighbor who lit off a half dozen burn piles, then when it got too smokey they just left for the weekend and let 'em burn unattended. A brilliant thing to do in a heavily wooded area. With neighbors like that I feel a lot safer knowing that we have Class A shingles, fiber-cement siding, and a deck made of Ipe that won't burn. ....

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F350Lawman
Join Date: Jul 2003
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2003-09-06          63299

There should be a special waiver in the Penal law that allows you to choke neighbors like that without penalty :) ....

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kwschumm
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 5764 NW Oregon
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2003-09-06          63300

Lawman, ain't it the truth! Maybe a public flogging would be appropriate. ....

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Mrwurm
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 184 South East Michigan
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2003-09-06          63301

Lawman, my neighbor is well-connected in the community. Somehow, she gets away with burning leaves and brush in the road. She drags her debris out there, sets it ablaze, and directs cars around the smoldering mess. We live on a fairly busy main route (dirt road) and this baffles me. I never go down that direction, so it does'nt affect me, just baffles me. ....

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F350Lawman
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 411 Goshen, NY
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2003-09-07          63333

Oh man, I don't even live there and I am angry.

That would make me nuts as I am sure it does you. Nothing worse than inconsiderate knuckleheads for neighbors. We all have had dealings with the borderline neighbors but the real losers can make life hell and ruin the enjoyment of an otherwise nice home.

Thankfully I have good neighbors but I can remember when I was growing up some real winners we lived near. One time we sold the house and moved mainly because my mother thought my dad was going to get arrested for "dealing" with the neighbors.:)My father was a perfect gentlemen, an executive and an otherwise nice guy but not good when it came to dealing with lowlifes.

Unfortunately I think I am genetically inclined not to be good at dealing calmly with bad neighbors either ;)

Nowadays you really don't want to be getting into disputes with neighbors when everyone calls the police at the drop of a hat and then all the ambulance chasing attorneys swoop in.:) ....

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Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999
Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
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2003-09-08          63362

We had a newly arrived resident in our area try burning in the road, the roads foreman for the township called me rather than the fire department, a 14' snow pusher on the front of a full-size TLB of mine took about 4 seconds to push the entire smoldering mess up his driveway...

It hasn't happened again...

Best of luck. ....

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kwschumm
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 5764 NW Oregon
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2003-09-08          63366

Attaboy Murf! I like the way you applied tractoring as the solution to a complaint about neighbors. ....

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DRankin
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 5116 Northern Nevada
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2003-09-08          63368

God, I love it. Good story Murf.

....

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Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999
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2003-09-08          63369

It was one of those situations were I wished I'd had a camera or video unit with me.

I don't know which way I would have pointed a camera though, at the shocked look on his face, or the 'I'm gonna kill you!' look on his wife's face.

Of course the cheers from the neighbours was kinda satisfying too... LOL

Best of luck. ....

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F350Lawman
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 411 Goshen, NY
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2003-09-08          63426

What's with this burning in the road trend? I have never heard anything like this until this thread, are these people nuts?

It's so wacky it's almost funny :) ....

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DRankin
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 5116 Northern Nevada
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2003-09-09          63442

They throw beer bottles on the road. They dump their fast food trash on the road. I see soiled diapers laying on the road shoulder all the time, along with greasy engine blocks and bags of household garbage. I think it is a short step from that...... to just exercising their constitutional right (I forget which amendment it is) to burn the same garbage they are dumping on the road.

When I was still wearing the blue suit, I used to go through the bags of trash looking for discarded mail and other personal info. Then I would pay a house call around dinner time and dump the evidence on the front porch along with a ticket for littering. If they said "it must have fallen off the truck, I wondered where it went" I just wrote them another for having an unsecured load.

Now all I can do is pick the crap up and hope to see someone doing it.

BTW, Anybody know of a source for those 3 or 4 foot long litter grabbers? The kind where you squeeze the grip at the top and it works a set of jaws at the other end?

I could really use a set. ....

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AC5ZO
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 928 Rio Rancho, NM 87144
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2003-09-09          63445

Here is one type of trash grabber. ....


Link:   Marko Trash Grbber

 
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AC5ZO
Join Date: Jul 2003
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2003-09-09          63447

Here is another grabber.

There are others if these won't work for you. ....


Link:   Drake Grabber

 
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drcjv.
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 334 southeastern pa
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2003-09-12          63731

Mark I bought one of those grabbers at home depot for about $9.00 Iuse it all the time to pick other peoples trash out of my front yard. ....

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F350Lawman
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 411 Goshen, NY
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2003-09-12          63734

"They dump their fast food trash on the road. I see soiled diapers laying on the road shoulder all the time"

Sort of the country version of throwing the garbage and dirty diapers out the housing project window ;) ....

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TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2003-09-13          63756

Around here on the highway there are plastic bottles of what locally is known as truckers' lemonade. One ended up in the middle of our drive. A real delight! At our camp, a few years' back somebody dumped an RV holding tank about 200' from both our front doors and not much further to our dug wells. Even more of a delight!

I'm sort of off RV's lately. They frequently use the mowed and fenced yard at our camp as if it were a public rest stop that somebody else was paid to clean up and nobody minds if it's used for doggy relief. A bunch of RV owner's should know better. It's not my fault if people buy such behemoths that the only place they can eat lunch is at a truck stop. Well, there are two real rest stops within short driving distances either direction from our camp. Good scenery there and you can even turn the behemoths around. Well, most owners could, but I wouldn't mind seeing a requirement for driver's licenses that commercial drivers of anything that big have to have. ....

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jgrimes227
Join Date: Sep 2003
Posts: 1 Fairfax Station, VA
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2003-09-21          64490

Back to non-burning brush pile. Air is the problem. A big pile of brush, especially if it has settled for a while, cannot breath, so the pile only burns indifferently around the edges no matter how much gasoline you pour on. I use the normal method of gasoline or what have you as the igniter and then use a back pack blower (leaf blower) to feed the pile the air necessary to get it going. It still takes some time but eventually the fire will burn enough holes in the pile that air channels develop and the damned thing will continue on its own. It seems that freshly made brush piles will burn pretty well because they have not settled or accumulated alot of moisture. Try it ....

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F350Lawman
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2003-09-21          64492

Nice idea with the leaf blower. ....

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DRankin
Join Date: Jan 2000
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2003-09-21          64507

And the physics of it make sense. Works the same in the wood stove. Won't burn if it can't breathe. ....

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kwschumm
Join Date: Feb 2003
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2003-09-21          64508

Using a leaf blower is a great idea! I've got an old homelite that I haven't needed for a few years. I'll have to get it running again now that it has a renewed purpose. ....

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TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2003-09-22          64523

Before the pile was successfully burnt I was wondering if jamming a length of old culvert into the centre of the pile at the bottom of the pile would help. Same idea as the leaf blower I guess but it may get air to the center of the pile without having to blow it through tightly packed brush. ....

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AC5ZO
Join Date: Jul 2003
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2003-09-22          64529

The leaf blower idea is a great one. Getting a pile to burn is more than just air, however. It is fuel density, heat and air, just like the fuel to air ration and ignition in an engine. Air is critical, but if the fuel is too thin or too dense, sections will start and then go out.

My brush piles have not set around for a long time and tend to be to open (thin). What happens there is that a section will burn and then it will go out because it does not produce enough heat to continue. It will not take off and catch the whole pile until I use the FEL or backhoe to crush the pile together. Then it goes like crazy. I seldom use gasoline or other petroleum fuel to start the pile. A gob of crumpled newspaper is generally all I need and the structure of the pile takes over from there.

Now in the west, we also have tumbleweeds that tend to be part of the brush. They are like kindling and I tend to use them in a mass where I want to light the pile. If you don't have tumbleweeds, I will be happy to ship you a few if you pay the postage. ;-)

If the pile was too dense to breathe, I can see how the leaf blower would work. ....

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Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999
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2003-09-22          64541

I asked a local contractor who does a lot of lot clearing, he says it is a real problem if the fire is not started correctly. He claims that after years of experimenting he has finally hit on a reasonably succesful method.

After he piles the brush together he inserts a length of 3" plastic water pipe into the center, or as close as he can get to it, on about a 45 degree angle, and another along the ground, again as close to the center as possible. He then pours a small amount of gasoline down the angled pipe and ignites it with a spark plug soldered on a length of thin wire. He claims the initial flare-up sarts a convection of hot air and flame going up the vertical'ish pipe which draws air in the horizontal pipe and creates a blast furnace effect which continues long after the pipe has melted/burned away.

Other than the blast issue when it's first lit, I don't think the plastic pipe burning is a great idea either, but he maintains it's such a small amount he burns (2 6' pieces) that it's inconsequential.

IMHO, a brush chipper and the resulting compost is a better method, but that's just me.

Best of luck. ....

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drcjv.
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Posts: 334 southeastern pa
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2003-09-22          64560

I am glad to see that I am not the only person to have some trouble burning a pile of brush. Hopefully with some of these ideas it will be easier in the future. ....

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