Burning brush piles

[rustyshakelford]

I guess being so close to Harris county I forget that other parts of the state is easier to burn in! In Harris co you need a pit with an air curtain. It's a mess if your commercial.

I don't like leaving piles sitting for a long time. It's personal preference. Maybe two months max. Any more and they get so dry that they go up and get almost uncontrollable. If it's green or recently fallen, they burn a little slower but smoke more.

I agree about getting a saw hand. It will let you get the piles much tighter and more compact. Good luck and bring hot dogs!

Brett

 

[Gary Fowler]

If my memory serves me (sometimes it is fragile), back when my Dad had woodlands cleared of mostly oak trees, the dozer cut them with a V blade, the next day a dozer with root rake piled them into a long windrow. 5 days after cutting they set fire to the windrow and it burned to ashes. The dozer did have to push up the piles to keep it compacted after it burned a while. The dozer contractor said that green wood burned good 3 -5 days after cutting, but if you let it set till the wood soured (you can smell the sour odor), it wont burn, it just burns off the small limbs and leaves and leaves the trunks which are then hard to burn.

I like to set the fire on a brush pile on the downwind side. It burns slowly into the wind and burns hotter. If you set it on the upwind side the fire tends to just rapidly go thru the brush pile burning all the small stuff without getting the larger trunks hot enough to burn.

As for pricing, ask the owner if he is going to baby sit the burn or if you have to do it all. I would price the standby time (time just watching the burn) at an hourly labor rate and then charge him full clearing price for time using my tractor to punch up the pile or if using a burn pit, to add fuel to the fire. Depending on the burn rate, this could be a full time exercise hauling timber to the pit. Sawing the trees into manageable pieces is not going to be a cake walk either so you would have to price that at an hourly rate also.

Personally, I would put the whole thing into a windrow and tightly compact it, maybe have to saw some of the larger trees into smaller pieces to do this. Then set the windrow on fire. Punching up the pile after the pile burns overnight is best with a steel track but can be done with rubber tire if you push all the ashes up with the FEL as you move into the pile. This is the worst thing for your tractor and equipment and you might want to look at renting a dozer to complete this activity.

 

[tmc_31]

Thanks for all of your advise guys, some very good pointers here.

Yellowdog, I too think the water wagon is a good idea. I will be close enough to a water spigot that I can keep the area around the pit watered but if the fire did get away from me I think I would want something that would deliver water more quickly than a water hose. I have been thinking about building a water wagon for a while now as we are about 8 miles from the nearest volunteer fire dept. I am thinking 2 of those 275 gal liquid transport tanks that you can move with a forklift mounted in series on a trailer. What kind of pump do you use for your water wagon? I have a 5 hp trash pump, but I am afraid it doesn't have the pressure needed. It would be nice to throw that water 75-100 ft at about 20-30gpm.

The saw hand idea is a good one as there are some rather large trees in the piles. I could pull out the largest of them and before the burning and cut them up for firewood.

One of my concerns is using my skid to move the brush from the piles to the burn pit. I am thinking of building a grapple that would hang from the end of a 10' gin pole attached to the skid. I already have the gin pole built and have been using it for several years. Hanging a grapple from it would keep my machine a little further away from the fire. Think of a grapple on an excavator in a scrap yard.

As for pricing, I could price the time I am using the skid at my normal rate then the rest of the time while I am just watching the fire, I could bill at a reduced rate. Moving the piles to a burn pit is going to take a while, especially since I have to have the fires out by dark. It will be interesting to see how long this is going to take.

Again, thanks for your thoughts. Any other thoughts, advise or warnings are appreciated, so keep them coming.

Tim

 

[ksbrdmkr]

In our County each Fire Department has different burn requirement. When I burn brush piles the wind has to be slower than I can run and I only burn one pile at a time. I would be very careful about using a cab tractor/skid close to a fire, with a open platform at least you can feel the heat. The safest time is when the ground is snow covered.

 

[rustyshakelford]

Thanks for all of your advise guys, some very good pointers here.

Yellowdog, I too think the water wagon is a good idea. I will be close enough to a water spigot that I can keep the area around the pit watered but if the fire did get away from me I think I would want something that would deliver water more quickly than a water hose. I have been thinking about building a water wagon for a while now as we are about 8 miles from the nearest volunteer fire dept. I am thinking 2 of those 275 gal liquid transport tanks that you can move with a forklift mounted in series on a trailer. What kind of pump do you use for your water wagon? I have a 5 hp trash pump, but I am afraid it doesn't have the pressure needed. It would be nice to throw that water 75-100 ft at about 20-30gpm.

The saw hand idea is a good one as there are some rather large trees in the piles. I could pull out the largest of them and before the burning and cut them up for firewood.

One of my concerns is using my skid to move the brush from the piles to the burn pit. I am thinking of building a grapple that would hang from the end of a 10' gin pole attached to the skid. I already have the gin pole built and have been using it for several years. Hanging a grapple from it would keep my machine a little further away from the fire. Think of a grapple on an excavator in a scrap yard.

As for pricing, I could price the time I am using the skid at my normal rate then the rest of the time while I am just watching the fire, I could bill at a reduced rate. Moving the piles to a burn pit is going to take a while, especially since I have to have the fires out by dark. It will be interesting to see how long this is going to take.

Again, thanks for your thoughts. Any other thoughts, advise or warnings are appreciated, so keep them coming.

Tim

If it was my burns, I wouldn't put it out at night regardless of what the law says. It will just keep doing its thing all night. The RH will increase and the threat of spread is very low. If you have a good pressure washer you could use that for the fire. Get some different tips. Obviously the gpm will be low but the pressure is great and you can get good reach with a red tip. It's not ideal but if you already have it use it. If it's fully involved nothing you have would knock it out. Just try to keep the embers down.

Brett

 

[cartod]

Cover the piles with a tarp and wait until its raining to light them if you are worried about fire.

 

[Beltman60]

I cover mine with a tarp for at least a week (usually ends up being more like a month by the time it rains)
I have dozens of tarps from Harbor Freight (cheap ones for this)
after a good rain is when I burn
never had a problem

I do like the idea of making a furrow down the middle of the acreage and lighting one area and let it burn to the other

diesel good gas BAD BAD BAD

 

[paulharvey]

My only real advice is build basically one or more long window piles, but leave 50 ft breads every 100ft or so. I wouldnt feed the fire with the skid steer or
tractor, its simply the wrong too low l for the job. The .right tool would be a 20 ton hoe with thumb (pc200, cat320, ect). Even using a hoe is a risk. I have personally seen one hoe burn feeding a fire (20 ton Hitachi) and know second hand of two komatsu pc200 both that burned feeding fires. Both komatsu where saved with only a few thousand in damage, but thehiatchi was a total loss, scrapped.
I

 

[tift104]

Everybody has provided valuable information. A lot of people think that all they have to do is pile it and light a match and leave it. There is an art to completing a successful burn. The weather conditions (wind direction and speed, days since rain, KDBI index, relative humidity) have to be in near perfect conditions prior to burning. You are also going to have to consider any smoke sensitive areas that may be near by. I usually go to any of the surrounding neighbors that I think would be a concern and tell them what I'm planning on doing. I've even gone to the extent of renting them a motel room for a day or two if there is going to be a residual smoke issue. I make a Burn Plan that includes maps of smoke sensitive areas, fire breaks, water sources, ect. I give everyone involved with the burn a copy. I usually let the land owner strike the first match. This may not mean nothing in a court room should something go horribly wrong but gives me a little ease of mind. The water cart is a necessity. I've done exactly what was mentioned earlier and used a 275 gallon container as a extra water source and a smaller spray tank on the back of a ATV for a more mobile water source. You may even consider burning the area surrounding the brush pile prior to lighting the pile itself. Should a rogue ember escape the pile hopefully it will land in the burned area and not flame up and create another problem. Brush piles tend to smoulder for days even weeks after they have burned down. We usually keep an watchful eye for the first several days after a burn is completed. As far as lighting the pile we usually put some diesel in the center of the pile and use a Panama Flame Gun or drip torch to ignite the diesel.
In my opinion fire is one of the best and most economical tools used for land clearing and timber management but can have devastating results if its not respected.
As far as what to charge. I usually have a hourly standby rate, a daily rate for the ATV & water cart, then my machine rates/hr for cleanup or sifting the piles. Just be careful with the equipment around the pile. I've seen a JD 650 dozer and a Tigercat Skidder burn to the ground because some idiot decided it was a good idea to punch up a few piles with equipment that had a few hydraulic leaks.
Good Luck and be careful.

 

[TomSeller]

Wow, I guess I am nowhere near as considerate. I wait for a rainy day with some wind and light it up with a propane weed burner. I also do as mentioned previously pile debris into long 10' wide east-west rows ahead of the burn. I then light the end the wind is blowing from (always west to east or east to west where I live) and let it burn like a cigarette. Alternately, I burn on an old stump and "flip" load it with a FEL carefully at a safe distance from up wind. Larger pieces of wood that do not burn completely get pushed into a pile a few days later and re burned.