[AT] Hay

Thu Jun 11 07:20:33 PDT 2015

One of our neighbors had a hay fire in a round baler about five years ago.
Burnt the baler, tractor, barn and house before they put it out.  He thought a bad bearing caused the fire.
You were very lucky it was not worse.

      From: Cecil R Bearden <crbearden at copper.net>
 To: Antique tractor email discussion group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com> 
 Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2015 7:46 AM
 Subject: Re: [AT] Hay

About 4pm yesterday I was cleaning up the edge of the wheat field with 
the 648 NH round baler, baling the very last bale in the field.  I was 
trying to get enough to wrap a full bale, so running the edge of the 
field where the windrow was very light.  Got to the end near the barn 
where I had cut some weeds with the disk mower to make a place to stack 
the round bales.  I was thinking of a cold Dr. Pepper and taking a nap.  
The monitor signaled the bale was large enough to wrap and I stopped and 
slowed down the throttle for wrapping.  The Error Alarm then went off 
and I turned around to see what the he!! was wrong this time!
The TOP OF THE BALER WAS ON FIRE!!  I raised the gate to kick the bale 
out lurched the tractor forward to eject it.  There was no way I could 
see behind me.  I started to unhook the baler and then decided to head 
for the water faucet.  I left the baler open and forgot the PTO was 
still running and headed the 400 ft to the faucet.  When I got there, 
the hose was wound around a couple of other things as I had washed the 
tractor off in another spot yesterday.  Finally got enough hose to 
water it down and the fire was concentrated to what was laying on the 
bale kicker, and the strands that accumulated on the top of the baler.
I was baling wheat hay that was extremely dry.  Much drier than i 
thought.  It had been cut only 2 hours earlier.  As I watered the baler 
I kept smelling smoke and was noticing smoke from the field where I had 
come.  When I got a chance to breathe I called my wife & told her we 
had a fire.  She called the Piedmont fire dept and told them that we had 
a baler fire just East of the fire chief..  ( joys of living in small 
rural area) In about 4 minutes the fire chief showed up and 5 minutes 
later the first brush truck came in.  I pulled the baler out of the way 
for the trucks to enter and got  the 4 wheeler to check out the burning 
area.  ( fire truck had not arrived yet).  We had 3 bales on fire and 
the field was burning from the south and advancing fast.  Teh JD swather 
had a fire near the tires.  I put the fire out with a green weed.  
Headed back to the barn for a shovel and returned. There were 3 more 
bales in the "line of fire"! I drove to the first one and tried to move 
it with the 4 wheeler out of the way but it unraveled and the fire got 
it at the same time!  I backed out quickly and went for the next one.  I 
saved 2 more.  There were now 3 brush trucks in the field, one pumper 
and one tanker and the Sheriff on the road!  15 minutes from the call.  
One of the brush trucks was from Deer Creek 6 miles away.  I got the 
loader tractor and started tearing the burning bales apart so they could 
water then down.    The first bale that started the problem would not go 
out.  We worked on it for 15 minutes with the loader and water.    I got 
out the 944 CAT loader.  When I came around with the CAT the fire chief 
grinned real big and motioned for the guys to move back.  I started 
digging dirt with the bucket and covering the fire.  3 loads of dirt 
with that 2 yard bucket and that fire was gone!
  After about an hour,  3 trucks, 8 firefighters, and 3000 gallons of 
water, the fire was out.  Only 5 bales lost, all equipment was OK, no 
one hurt or had a heart attack, and I think the baler is OK.  I will 
check for a source of the spark later.    The belts were new and had the 
JD lacing in them.  Hopefully the JD lacing does not spark against the 
rollers in the front of the baler.
I later told the fire chief that next time we have a training exercise 
lets use some straw instead of that good wheat hay!!  He just laughed!!

Cecil in OKla

On 6/10/2015 10:13 PM, Gunnells, Bradley R wrote:
> Ah the joys of making hay. I can appreciate all you've said.
>
> I have a few acres here to make and watching the weather. Hopefully soon I can get the old Ford 801 and IH 990 conditioner in the field. The neighbor will round bale the first crop with new JD equipment. The later crops will see the old IH 46 square baler. That's my idea of making hay!
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Jun 10, 2015, at 10:05 PM, "Dean Vinson" <dean at vinsonfarm.net> wrote:
>
>> Turned out to be less humid Wednesday than I'd expected, so by late
>> afternoon the young guy who bales my few acres of hay figured it was plenty
>> dry and we ought not let the remaining hours of daylight go to
>> waste--especially with a forecast for higher humidity and scattered
>> thunderstorms Thursday.  He'd raked the main field before I got home then
>> switched to baling once a couple other kids came to help, leaving the raking
>> in the smaller areas to me and the trusty Super M.  It's just grass hay but
>> it looks, feels, and smells good.  Quite a nice evening.  (At least up
>> until the knotter broke halfway into the second wagonload and defied all
>> efforts to fix it in the field.  Oh well.)
>>
>> http://www.vinsonfarm.net/photos/raking_hay_20150610.jpg.
>>
>> Dean Vinson
>> Saint Paris, Ohio
>>
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