Best way to start burn pile

[Taylortractornut]

Ill sure post a picture once I get the new motor on the strawblower. I have a hole behind the shop that was an old road bed where I burn most of my wood waste it was a dumpsite for the previous owner. We brought home the scraper and filled it in and we take in concrete and concrete and asphaltand such filling in the hole. The last 4 yearsthe backside has filled up the trash brush like devils walking stick and other quick growers. I need some fill dirt for a few little jobs and I decided to clean the brush out of the bottom of the road bed and excavate there. For fun I had some old propane grill bottles with out of date numbers and bad threads. I couldnt use them on my burn table so I lit a road flre and chunked it at the end of the underbrush then opened the valve on the bottle and chunked it off the pile and trotted around by the scrp pile when it took it was awesome. a big whoosh. The bottle did good towards the end it gave a big pop. It just singed all the little tress up to 10 feet and all the tons of honey suckle. Also found the remains of mice feild rats and gopher rats about 15 in all. The taller trees are singed enough to burn later. My neighbors all heard the racket and saw the smoke. The new ones are getting used to it by now.

 

[tommu56]

The lint from your dryer's lint trap makes an excellent fire starter to carry with you hiking, camping, etc. A plastic baggie full weighs next to nothing!

As far as starting brush piles, I use newspaper and no more than a quart of used motor oil. Let it start small and build up.

I was at Scout master training and it was pouring and we had to start a fire with 2 matches all the wood and tinder that we could find was wet or damp.
We all had poncho's on I had every one clean the lint out of their pockets it was amazing how much lint was in the pile from 10 people in our patrol
The instructor thought we used paper when we won the fire building competition and he said never thought lint as a survival fire starter.

tom

 

[rhett]

stack the debris by the road. recycling collections gather this stuff for manufacture of paper, particle board, chip board, mulch, ...etc... at least it is done here = fewer trees cut down to feed the needs.

lol, the LOX idea is well, humorous... why not thermite or willy peter... napalm was mentioned. ga-gee-buss build a furnace so the energy could be captured for a productive use = winter is upon us...

 

[TWD]

Most of the time up here we are burning pine needles, limbs of pine trees or brush, and cedar limbs. Think dry Christmas tree on fire :laughing: it doesn't take much, normally just light a corner of needles, and it goes.

 

[Redgoatea]

The brush and slash pile we burned four days ago is still going. Haven't fed it in three days. 7

 

[Gary Fowler]

I usually use a sheet of paper from some advertiser, place it into the pile on the downwind side near some of the small branches with dry leaves. Then I use my wifes cigarette lighter to start the paper and let it go. It is usually a slow start but it gets to going and eats it way upwind slowly. Usually it burns everything but maybe a few stray limbs that werent in the pile. If the pile doesnt have any small limbs, I will save my used hydraulic oil and pour on the pile, then use the sheet of paper to start it. It doesnt take a bunch of accelerant to start most fires, just a little patience to let it go at it own pace. It always burns better when started on the downwind side rather than upwind. Most people wrongly tend to light fires on the upwind side and it just rips thru the pile burning all the light stuff and not getting the big stuff hot enough to burn.

 

[bobodu]

I use my weed burner,but the wife keeps a small square Kleenex box above the dryer and all lint from the trap gets stuffed in there. She asked me yesterday why I haven't used the lint. I had a one word reply....."PROPANE!!".

 

[bp fick]

Because our area is prone to forest/wild fires, tinder dry much of the time, and heavily forested, our county has recently banned all burning. Period. Banned, as in ended. No more.

Got caught off guard by the move, a bit. Had been storing up stuff for a big burn this fall. Dang. Now I have to load it all up and haul it to a landfill and pay the big price. I am conflicted about this burn ban, as you can see.

 

[Mechanos]

Because our area is prone to forest/wild fires, tinder dry much of the time, and heavily forested, our county has recently banned all burning. Period. Banned, as in ended. No more.

Got caught off guard by the move, a bit. Had been storing up stuff for a big burn this fall. Dang. Now I have to load it all up and haul it to a landfill and pay the big price. I am conflicted about this burn ban, as you can see.

Sounds like a good excuse to buy a nice PTO chipper!

 

[sjames]

Ive never gotten much smoke from using a tire as a starter. It will smoke for few minutes in the beginning, but then its all clear. I suppose if you only had a small brush pile it might be a problem.

Here is one thing you definitely don't want to burn. A foam mattress. I did that 30 years ago, the plumes of thick black smoke were pretty impressive. The flames went up a good 30' and the massive billowing clouds of black smoke went up a hundred feet or more easily.