How do you burn piles?

[dmccarty]

The tires have lots of stuff in it that is not real clean burning. Here they would burn trees in town or near town but it appears they have a ban on burning for land clearing in some counties. I have seen one area being developed. It used to be in the middle of no where and the road was only paved a few years ago. A few years before paving the road just dead ended and had been like that for many decades.

This particular place stradles two counties. I drove throught there one day and land clearing was going on for subdivisions in both counties. One subdivision in one county was burning slash. Withing sight of the burn was another site but they had to chip the slash since they were in a different county.

NC regs prevent used oil from being use to start the fire as well. Which I don't get. Oil would clump to the wood and not fall on the ground like diesel. As far as I know you could burn the used oil in an oil burner. What is the difference? I don't know. The rules is Da rules. I don't make 'em.

Later,
Dan

 

[ragkar]

You guys gave me some great suggestions for my today burn of stumps and root balls and squaw wood.
I used a burn pit (actually a 3'x8' stump hole), propane weed burner, lawn blower and of course my tractor fel and bh.
The propane burner starts the fire amazingly fast compared to my old boy scout technique.
I was sorta fun dragging, pushing and lifting those root balls into the fire pile. The root balls were cleaned of mud last year using a pressure washer and dried out since.
About every half hour I compact the pile and turn the blower on it. It gets super hot.
An hour ago I had a sudden downpour that didn't phase the fire a bit. I expect that by sunset I'll have it mostly done.

 

[Highbeam]

Don't forget that when burning tires you will end up with a pile of steel belts that were inside the tire. The evidence of tire burning lasts long after the black smoke goes away.

 

[chucko]

true you do have the belts to deal with

 

[bustedtplnk]

The trick to having a good fire is to stack all of your branches, limbs and logs parallel to each other otherwise you get a donut burn and you have to keep pushing your pile together. I cover the piles with kraft paper or plastic visqueen to keep them dry then burn them at the end of fall afters the rain has started.

 

[davitk]

who needs tires? I have an old mattress I've been saving for a special occasion

 

[Eagleview]

I use petrol to get them going , if a fire dont go WOOOF it's no fun . I let one go in a gully once , the fumes of the petrol i threw on the timber had settled on the gully floor , i wet a piece of wood with petrol , lit it and threw it in WOOOOF My wife said i looked like Forest Gump running out of the fireball .

 

[Pushing_Tin]

I've burned a lot over the past year and have found that the propane weed torch is the way to go. Even one some rainy days with some green stuff that torch got the piles going.

Burn season just ended here and doesn't start again until October 15th.

 

[N80]

Rich, just be careful. Its real dry around here. I did some larger piles a few years ago. Big clearing. Misty rain. Cool outside.

Still got way hotter and way higher than I was comfortable with. And when it gets that hot anything on the ground is fuel. So you need to be down to bare dirt.

I had no serious problems, but even in the misting rain, I got real real nervous several times. And as dry as it is now, anything that blows up off of the fire can set a blaze somewhere else. It was during the dry spell when I did mine and even though the light rain was helping, I still had to run to put out a couple of little start ups way away from the burn pile.

 

[SCRich]

MAN, did I get a discussion going! I never got a reply notification and have had internet problems at home so with some spare time now in the truck with a good internet connection I thought I would check out the site.

Great suggestions, and yes even though we have had some rain over the past few days it does not look like it's going to get better and with the week of 100+ temps the little hope I had to burn I think is now gone.

Yes EVERYTHING in the area is down to bare dirt/rock, or as I like to call it now DUST. I feel good about the cleared area but I have no control over an ember that may catch a thermal and go up and over to some other place who knows how many hundreds of feet away.

It's frustrating, all of this carp is going to make my projects a big PIA. I am seriously considering hiring out a 18 wheeler and a grapple to haul the stuff away once and for all. I got a grapple also but if I work along with a 2nd larger one we can probably rotate 2 trucks and get it done in a few hours.Time is money and it would take a lot of weekends of burning, like several months worth to get a handle on it. Burning season is also hunting season and once the end of August comes about I try to stay away from many of my areas other than a quick trip to check on the camera's or fill the feeders.

 

[N80]

Rich, I don't know what your situation is or how much room you have or how much debris you have. But most of the time I just shove mine up in the woods in small to moderate piles and let nature take its course. It might seem like a long time, but pine debris rots really fast. Usually about a year and the pile is more or less flattened out.

With a grapple you should be able to distribute around in discrete places fairly easily. Its a bit harder just with the bucket.

The piles are also good for rabbits, quail, etc.

 

[SCRich]

I got some room but not enough to do the piles I have fully. It has been 16 months now and nothing has decomposed enough to even notice. The only thing you can see now is a lot of grass and weeds growing out of the piles and around the pile.

Distribution to various areas is difficult at this moment since I have few trails into the woods but if I can find someone who can clear the logging trails I can get further but it will not help much. We are wall to wall trees, most of the logging was just thinning so I have a few spots but not many large ones. With the price of diesel today if I got to go very far with a grapple full and do that all day long hauling it away is a bit more appealing. I got 2 spots where a full size trailer can pull up and the piles will be no further than 30 or so feet away. Yes piles are good for small game but I got enough of those, probably 5-10 of them in various locations now for who knows how long. When the hunting club leased this land I think they cleared what we used as the staging area and really old small and large piles dot the land. Interesting thing is they have not had a lease here probably in 10+ years, the piles are still large, not much decomposing as everyone claims would be happening. Stumps, got hundreds of them, some I can drive over and some I can not, been 16-17 months now and none of them show ANY signs of age let alone decomposing. I was told 3-4 years and they would be gone, not at this rate.

Most of what I have are stumps from construction, tree tops from the logging and a lot of branches burried with everything else from the logging and a bunch of small trees that were torn out with all the other work. I got some birch and a bunch of wimpy cedar trees tossed in the mix also. Probably 4 truck's worth depending on how well it get's packed, I am talking 40ft open trailers like we would use down in Florida in the orange groves.

I really knew this would be a mess late this spring. In the logging staging area when I went to drive to a far corner I started slipping and sinking. I backed out and scraped the top and what was dry, brown and apparently solid at top was a mattress of a few decomposing branches, but mostly bark and pine needles. Yes decomposing but several feet deep and becoming mucky by holding a ton of moisture, it would take a LOT of years before it became hard packed ground to drive over regularly and not very good soil to grow on since the bark and pine needles would make it real acid.

If you ever plan on driving by Todd's place send me a message, love to have you over and take a look. I am about 5 minutes or less down the street from the dealership.

 

[N80]

Man, that sounds tough. I'm out of ideas. I wonder if anyone with those machines that make mulch would be interested in doing the job for the mulch? Or even a fee?

 

[RonMar]

I made up a small portable blower using a 4" 12V electronics box fan from radio shack, RadioShack.com - Computers: Components & parts: Cooling systems: 4" Cooling Fan or Surplus Center, Surplus Center Item Detail and a piece of 4" X 48" metal duct pipe from just about any home/hardware store. Those little fans will run off a 5-7AH 12v gel cell for 24 hours. I set this down under the pile and push the pipe way into the center. Rags soaked with motor oil, lit, and pushed into the center of the pile near the air pipe get the show rolling, then I turn on that little fan. This constant air supply creates a VERY hot core fire that roars like blast furnace. This heat at the core has to exit thru the other material on the pile above it and it quiclky breaks the pile down, even when wet. I will every so often push the edges in, or dump more material onto the middle with the FEL. I pretty much only burn when it is raining.

 

[Richard]

Some meandering thoughts

I usually try to start my fires with diesel that is held in a garden pressure can. As already stated, this way I can boost a flame or walk it to a new location. I can spray a stream INTO a hole of the debris and try to stoke a hot spot deeper inside the pile.

My piles usually accumulate over several weeks/months so I dont have the luxury of stacking things. Usually, someone (my wifes cousin) dumps things on the pile out of their pickup or I pile things on using my front loader.

When stirring the fire, or otherwise maintaining it, I use my backhoe. (I cheat because it will dig to 15 1/2 feet I dont recall what its reach is)

Anyways, I'll use the backhoe to consolidate the fire while keeping myself at more of a distance.

I've had some doozy fires. Attached is a picture showing way in the background, my full sized JCB 1550 backhoe and one of the slash piles left by the logger guys. (this is NOT my typical sized fire)

The day I burnt this fire, it had rained for the prior 2 days, the morning OF the fire. I had my fire permit, my backhoe, my cellphone with me. I'm supposed to stay with the fire until its out

At about 2:30 A.M., it was pretty much embers when I saw some lights coming up the road. Seems someone across the lake called the Sheriff thinking that our side of the lake was on fire. (I actually liked the fact that they called). Anyways, he approached me and I said Hi

He asked what I was up to and I said I was burning a slash pile (duh)

He then asked "How are you going to put it out?"
I said "it rained today, I've got my burn permit, cell phone AND backhoe..." (in other words, I have ZERO intention of putting it out)


He then said with a bit more of a redneck attitude "You DO know you're supposed to STAY with your fire until its out don't you?"

I looked at him and said "yes...it IS 2:30 and I'm here aren't I ?"
He paused and then finally said "yeah...have a good evening and got in his car to drive away.

Truth be told? About 30 minutes later, I went home & went to bed.

 

[dmccarty]

Man, that sounds tough. I'm out of ideas. I wonder if anyone with those machines that make mulch would be interested in doing the job for the mulch? Or even a fee?

Getting a mulching machine was my idea as well. We have a pile of wood from timbering and building the house. The pile was the size of a two story house but it has settled so its 1.5 story house.

I saw a guy running two excavators that were filling a tub grinder from a pile of wood similar to what we have on our land. I stopped and talked to the owner for 15-20 minutes. They had reduced the pile by half in that time. In went trees, stumps, etc and out came mulch. The owner was heming and hawing on a rough qoute but he was around $2-3000. This was back in 2004 ish. 3K is alot of money. But we have spend a good $1,500 for mulch. We just need to save up and to get our pile mulched. Two bangs for the buck.

Later,
Dan

 

[PineRidge]

A empty can with the top cut off (beer, pop, soup etc.) fill half way with diesel and stuff a small rag in the top so it hangs in the diesel. Build your pile around the can starting with the smaller drier wood and pile it on bigger as you go.

After you light the torch add air with a leaf blower if you have one after the smaller wood starts to ignite. Once the fire is hot you can add most anything. Works every time.