About three weeks ago, we had six days straight where the temperature reached somewhere between 100 F and 105 F every day. We then had a couple of cooler days and then the temperature soared again. It is harvest time here and all of the farmers are flat out harvesting. On the 19th of November the temperature hit 105 F at about 11:30 am and the wind was really starting to gust up from the north. A neighbour about 4 km south east of us was loading his truck in the paddock and when he went to start it, we believe a loose battery clamp arced on the terminal, dropping sparks in to the wheat stubble. For the next three hours all hell broke loose. At the height of the fire, the temperature climbed to 109 F and the wind was gusting up to 60 kilometers an hour. All up, it travelled 8 kilometers, burnt 3,000 acres, of which 300 acres were crop, a hayshed with 100 big square and round bales and 200 sheep, which I had to bury next day. Besides that, two of our local CFS trucks collided head on in zero visibility and five crew were injured. Fortunately the injuries were not too serious and they are all OK, although two were air lifted to Adelaide for observation. Then as we were working on securing the eastern flank, ready for a 50 kilometer an hour wind change from the west, lightning started two more fires, about 25km away and one of them burnt right into the back of a small town right on the coast. That one burnt about 300 acres of crop. There were two or three other small ones as well. A couple of days after that, we had an inch of rain and have had more showers since, with quite cool weather, although they are forecasting 102 F for next Wednesday. The fire even made the Internet: http://www.wildlandfire.com/hotlist/showthread.php?t=12799 This is what our local paper had to say: http://www.ypct.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6317 These are a couple of pics from the paper showing the fire burning through wheat crops and the two fire trucks that collided.
Once the fire was contained, they wanted a loader to push trees in on the eastern flank, because a 50 kilometer wind change from the west, was forecast for later on in the evening. Here are a few pics, the first one being the two fire trucks, then clearing trees from the road, pushing trees in and the last one, well there are some earthmoving jobs, I just do not enjoy at all. Rn'R.
Had to do that with over 100 pigs after a barn fire. Can't help but feel bad for them as there was no escape from the flames. Glad to hear you got a little rain but the moisture won't last long at those temps.
Many of us envy you the warm weather but we tend to forget about the terrible consequences of a misplaced spark. I think the statement " all hell broke loose" is probably putting it politely after the devestation that parts of your country suffered recently from fires. Real glad those guys had no serious injuries. I dont envy you those muckshift jobs either, although I bet the trees were a bit of fun
These sheep were some young breeders, that a mate of mine had just bought in and they were running in a small paddock close to his house. When the fire came through, it came through that fast, they did not have time to shift them and the sheep had nowhere to go. Fortunately his house and sheds were saved. Certainly didn't have to worry about any greenies. The problem was that they are old ti-trees and most of them were burning in the centre. With the wind blowing so strong, I had to be careful that sparks were not blown out ino the unburnt area. Rn'R.
A fire story: I hear you Rn'R... a very unfortunate and unpleasant situation, to have to deal with... So far, I've been lucky... and I'll continue to count my blessings. OCR
You done what you had to do R&R.I hate those types of dirt jobs as well mate.
Burning Wheat Fields We used to have trouble around here in the wheat when catalytic converters first come out. They would get cherry red hot and sit a wheat field off before you knew what happened. Most people that farmed learned pretty fast. Landlords were a different story.
Well, OCR and td25c, I certainly hope I don't have to do it again, for everyone's sake. We have had a couple of fires started in the early days when catalytic converters first came out, roddyo, but most country people are aware of them. It is a bit of a worry at holiday time, when the city people head out into the bush. A bigger problem here at the moment, are the new rotary headers, of both colours and particulary when reaping lentils. There have been no major fires, but one in particular, a brand new Case 9120, has had ten instances where it had, either smouldering material on the machine, or dropped it on to the ground. The owners are dragging three long chains to try and get rid of the static electricity. Lentils are particularly bad, because they seem to create a lot of static electricity while being harvested and they produce a very fine dust which ignites easily. A couple of people actually came out here, from the factory in the US, to try and work out what the problem was with this machine. The green ones are not immune from the problem, either and there have been instances, where they have lit fires while harvesting lentils. A mate of mine who has an STS, had a small fire and afterwards one of the CFS crew picked up the chain that he was dragging on his header, and the shock from the chain nearly threw him backwards. Both these farmers are fastidious operators and keep their machines very clean. Rn'R.
Amen to that. Christ, if it aint the weather its the crop !! You need to get some spare batteries hooked up on them chains and save that power. You could be first to the up and comming regeneration market for harvesters.
It would be interesting, Rob, if there actually was some way of measuring static electricity. Ever since rotary headers were introduced here and that includes all brands, there have been quite a few instances of fires starting with no obvious cause, or farmers finding a patch of chaff and dust, smouldering somewhere on the machine. As time went on, the question of static electricity was raised. Farmers noticed that the dust was sticking to the cabin windows, but as soon as they started dragging chains, attached to the machine, the dust disappeared. Everyone here, now drag chains and most farmers blow their machines down regularly, to prevent dust and chaff building up, but despite all this, some of the new machines, like the one I mentioned, have a real problem. The other side of it is, that there are thousands of these machines working here and around the world and they do not cause any problems at all. Rn'R.
Could this be a case of too many isomount rubber bushings not letting the charge get to the chains? Modern machinery goes to great lengths to minimize vibration where old stuff was bolted together. Perhaps a few grounding straps from the header to the machine or chain would help get rid of the charge.
That is an interesting comment, Bill. I know the fellers with the 9120 were taking bolts out of the engine bay, I think, and were cleaning all the paint off them, to help conduct the static electricity. Like you say, a few earth straps should help. I will have to catch up with them and find out a bit more and I will be interested in hearing what the Case technicians come up with. Some people are saying it is all the plastic that is being used on the new machines and others are saying it is because they are pushing so much more material through them. RnR.
Well, we had another header fire today, about 6km from here, but I think this one might have been a mechanical fault. Fortunately, although the temperature was up around 100F, there was not a lot of wind, and it only burnt about 120 acres of standing wheat crop. Tomorrow's forecast is for 102F with strong northerlies and extreme fire danger. I think I would almost settle for a good snow storm at the moment. RnR.
No you wouldnt I need to be having a word with a few members in Canada as somebody must have left their freezer door open last night. I woke up to -4c :tong
Ye Rob it was that here last Night when I was walking home full of antifreeze and Christmas Cheer
The temperature is back to a very pleasant 24C (75F) and only rising to 34C (93F) between now and Christmas, with patchy rain forecast for Wednesday and Thursday. Perhaps we will hold off on the snow storm for a little while, although a white Christmas certainly would be different. RnR.
Combines, fires & drag chains I too heard the hint about dragging a chain from the frame of a combine to keep the machine from building a static charge. At the time, it was supposed to help keep the glass windows from attracting dust and make them easier to keep clean. Later heard that it was supposed to help prevent fires. I tried dragging a worn out chunk of stainless steel roller chain. Aside from the feel good factor, I really couldn't say that it did any good. After all, when is the last time anyone stepped off a combine and got a shock as he had his hand on the step rail and touched the ground? I've been around combines for some years, and typically work in hot, lo-humidity conditions; much like the guys in Oz do. So, a few years ago, I did an experiment to see if the static buildup is mostly myth and whether the conductivity of the tires does what I thought it would do. Here's what I did: Tires vs. drag chain. I had time to check out just how conductive combine tires are, whether they insulate, and whether the drag chain helps, hinders, or is mostly psychological. Here is what I found: Front tires are bias ply 30.5 X 32 and the rear tires are 16.9 X 26. I ran the front tire onto a sheet of bright, untarnished copper and one lead of a Fluke 77 VOM to the copper sheet and the other to one of the lug bolts of the rim. In order to confirm that readings didn't reflect capacitively charging the machine and affecting the reading, I took readings with leads first connected one way and then the other. There was no noticeable difference in the resistance readings that was dependent on the polarity of the test probes. The readings also remained constant, indicating no capacitive charge or discharge. Front tire lug bolt to sheet reading was 97 KΩ. When I moved the combine to place the rear tire on the copper sheet, I got a value of 350 KΩ for the back tire. That gives us two paths with a resistance of 97K and two with a resistance of 350K. If I remember my basic Ohms Law, to find the value of resistors in parallel you sum the reciprocal of all the values and then find the reciprocal of that number to determine total resistance. I came up with 37.975 KΩ from combine frame to ground. If you consider that walking across a carpet in a dry room will charge your body to about 35,000 volts, then the path to ground offered by the tires would let nearly 1 amp of current pass at that voltage level. Enough static buildup to start a fire? I don't think so. I did hear from one guy who tried the drag chain method. He put one on his combine years ago to keep dust off the windows,that did not work,did do a couple of things. It beat all the paint off the combine frame in the area where it is mounted,and once when crossing a barb wire gate with a splice in one wire,it snagged that splice in a chain link and balled up the gate under the combine.
Its just another reason why Lentils should be banned!:throwup:throwup:stirthepot
G,day RnR...its forecast 36-37 most days this week and we aren't getting a southerly to cool off. I heard of a header going up in smoke over Esperance way last week. Anyway, I'm off to chuck a bombie in the kids wading pool ointhead
G'day Squizzy, you must be busy, haven't seen you around much, lately. Not exactly my favourite tucker, either. It looks like we might get some rain from the cyclone in the north west. It's fairly common these days, good for the manufacturers, keeps them in work. Now that should make 'Funniest Home Videos'.:lmao RnR.
That is a very interesting post, EdB and the first time I have actually heard of anyone trying measure the conductivity to the ground, of static electricity. I was a bit surprised that the tyres actually conducted a small amount of electricity, I thought they would have insulated the machine from the ground. The problems here started soon after the introduction of rotary machines, which now, is quite a few years ago. Case IH and New Holland were the first ones and I know farmers with both makes that had problems with finding smouldering material on the machines and fires that have started, where there is nothing on the machine to indicate where the fire has come from. Bearing failure, slipping belts and chaff build up around the engine and manifold are obvious causes of header fires, but in these instances, they could find nothing at all. That is when they started dragging chains and I don't think there would be a rotary machine in this area, that doesn't drag a chain. As I said earlier, the bulk of the problems occur when reaping lentils, but not all of them. A mate of mine has a John Deere STS and he started a fire while reaping lentils. Fourtunately it was a calm evening and didn't go far. They searched that machine high and low and the only place they could find where material may have been burning, was on the step. Later on a member of the local CFS (Country Fire Service) picked up the chain and the shock from it, nearly threw him backwards. My mate then went back reaping after dark, with the fire fighter following him and he said to me, he could not believe the amount of sparks coming off the reel, while picking up the lentils. This year I have heard of unexplained fires with John Deere machines and earlier on, I mentioned the problems of the new Case IH 9120. I know the owners of that machine quite well and they were just about beside themselves with it. As I said before, a couple of Case IH technicians came out from the US to see what was going on. I am no expert, Ed, but if static electricity is not the cause of these unexplained fires, a lot of people here, would like to know what is. RnR.
It's a pretty common misconception that a tire is a good insulator. Nothing could be further from the truth. What the manufacturers put in them to make them black is a substance called carbon black. Carbon is a pretty darned good conductor. Friend poked the aerial for his 2-way into a 7200V power line. Big fireball in the cab as the juice flowed through the radio and to the chassis of his combine (header to you folks). Once at the chassis, it found its way through the wheel bearings, axles, rubber tires and to the ground. Current flowing through the tires made big holes as it exited, let the air from the tires, and the machine settled enough to disentangle the aerial from the line and the fireworks stopped. Pretty well totaled the machine though. Power company made good because their line was too low. Along these lines, some tires on things like wheelchairs in hospitals will not have any carbon black in them, to keep from marring floors. Those tires will have tiny copper fibers blended into the rubber so they don't create static sparks. As for what does cause these fires, we're trying to make sense of it too. The guy that tangled the wire fence under his machine runs two CIH rotary machines. One is a self propelled and the other is its twin, only it's a pull-type, powered by the PTO from the towing tractor. The pull type has never had a fire, the self-propelled has had several incidents where a pile of pea dust will be found smoldering. He figures it is due to a small fleck of dust or chaff falling off a hot manifold or maybe even a small flake of hot soot coming from the exhaust. His experience indicates to me that the most likely cause is a swirling ember landing on fuel and starting things ablaze. In your case, where there was a pile of smoldering material on a step, a stray spark from the exhause would be a lot more likely cause than a static spark. If it's a metal step, the whole thing will be at the same electrical potential so there would be no way a spark could jump from one part of the step to another.
Up to my ears in box jellyfish Thats where your going wrong....they are not edible Bloody well hope so, its pickin up again at last report. Up where the olds are at the northern tip of the wheatbelt you can get yourself a load of buckshot in your backside if you move a catalytic vehicle in the middle of the day. I still blame the Lentils though...no good can come from them. Saves me waterin the lawn
The only problem with that Ed, is that I do know of a couple of instances where smouldering material was found inside the machine. At the same time, I do not disagree with you either. I had a bit of a look on the Combine Forum to see if I could find any discussion on this and a chap there was saying the same thing, as your mate. Something that he pointed out, that I had not thought of, is the fact that headers have precleaners with venturies to the exhaust, so that if chaff was sucked into the precleaner, it was then blown into the exhaust stream, where it could be ignited. He and a few neighbours were having problems with header fires, so he modified the exhaust pipes and extended them out over the rear of the machines. He said they had no more problems after that. Food for thought. RnR.
Gday All, Im not sure what causes it but headers certainly make a lot of static electricity, I have a 7010 Case and just climbing up the back to fuel up is not too different to copping one from the spark plug of the donkey on a D4! As for brands and conventional vs a rotary well the Case gives you more shocks but we lit more unexplained fires with a Johny conventional so it sure beats me. Good pics Rnr but I hope you dont have to take anymore and I hope all is quiet over the silly season for you.
G,day RnR...its hot and blowin its guts out here...I'd say things are going from Bad to worse over your way?
It's all over the place, nextdoor, everyone has a different story, but I heard of another instance today of a chap getting a boot from the rear ladder on a Case IH. Thanks, I hope I don't get to take anymore, either. We are supposed to be getting a little bit of rain tomorrow and cool for Christmas. It was an absolute shocker today, Squizzy. Although the temperature only got to 36C, the wind was gale force up until lunch time and then it eased off a bit. I am looking forward to tomorrow and hoping it will be damp. It looks like you will miss out on any rain from the cyclone and they are only forecasting about 5mm for us. I don't know if you heard, but a fire started on the north western side of Port Lincoln about 1pm and ran right into the edge of the town. According to the news, they lost ten houses. They have had a really bad run there, in the last few years. You have had a couple of big ones running over there as well. RnR.
Just read about the Port Lincoln fires. I don't think it will be too long before I have to pull on the orange overalls....little #@*!!*@^! s around here will set fire to the same bush every year. Laurence is officially a tropical low and its gunna dump a shirtload of rain somewhere out around Sandy Blight Junction....and then generally head in your direction but I don't think you will get bugger all mate. Hope Santa looks after you, and keeps a heat shield on his Catalytic Converter.
I just got our forecast for Tuesday, 43c northerly winds starting at 25km rising to up to 50km. I hope that everyone obeys the Harvest bans in their area under such shocking conditions. The fire danger rating is catastrophic- I think that says it all. Hey you blokes on the other side of the globe send us down some cool weather can you!
We are getting snow and winds today. Wish I could send it your way!
That sounds wicked. Harvest ban or not, my machine would be parked. Folks that have never seen a prairie wildfire don't seem to understand how dangerous they are. We had one here about 10 years ago. Freight train started it. A wall of flames 200 feet high, approaching at 35 MPH will change your outlook -- guaranteed! Sorry we seem to be running out of real cold weather as the temps today are near 0°F. A relief from the -40s chill factor we had around Christmas Day. If you get to feeling too warm, you can see what's happening at my farm here: Weather at EdB's
I'm thinking of you, nextdoor, we had a day like that last week. Fortunately harvest is nearly finished here, but there are some that just don't get it, I will be quite happy if they tighten the harvesting restrictions a little. I am not sure about the "Catastrophic" rating. That is the new national rating scheme, but they could have perhaps chosen a better name, it is creating a lot of confusion around the country. For the benefit of our Northern Hemisphere freinds, the Australian fire authorities use what they call an FDI Index. They consider that if the Index reaches 35, beyond that a fire becomes uncontrollable. For instance, if the temperature is 35C and the humidity is 14%, once the wind speed goes over 26Kph, the FDI reaches 35 and it is recomended that all harvesting operations cease. Unfortunately, there is no legislation to enforce it. The chart is here: http://www.cfs.sa.gov.au/site/community_information/farmers/harvesting_codes_of_practice.jsp Click on "Grain Harvsting Operation Weather Restrictions". When they forecast the "Catastrophic" rating, it means that the FDI rating will go over 100, which means if a fire starts, you have a problem and of course that depends on the terrain and fuel loads. At the height of the fire I mentioned earlier in this thread, I believe the FDI reached about 125. RnR.
I checked the weather 44c, 8% humidity and the wind was 51kmh.....YUK! However no fires here, thank god. I just got word of one 250kmh northwest and I wish them all the best.
All the north crews available have shot through to Dandaragan, Toodyay or Badgingarra. Its still out of control but if the wind will ease up they might be able to backburn it out in the early hours tomorrow. The good news is the bureau has forecast a cool day...it all depends on the wind though. http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/homes-lost-as-flames-threaten-toodyay-20091229-lhok.html Floods in New South...fires in the West ointhead
I saw reports on the flooding in NSW. Dang shame they can't send some of that your way. We are down to 4F with 30-40mph winds. At least most of the snow is blowing off the hilltops. Hope the fire danger drops for you fellas.
Its still not under control: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/30/2782631.htm?section=australia
40 houses gone now
That's not good, Squizzy. I went to Google maps and had a bit of a look around the Toodyay area. It looks like there are a lot of lifestyle blocks out there and the terrain is a bit hilly. 39.9C here at the moment, but hardly any wind. That's a pretty fancy weather station with all the readouts, EdB. I wouldn't mind getting something like that, they are around, I just haven't done anything about it. RnR.
Its hilly and rough as guts, lots of areas not so accessible...even though we have had a cool change here it will be hot and the winds still a problem. The hobby farmers can be a real problem not being professional land managers. They generally have little or no equipment and poor firebreaks. They don't have the equipment to clean up and maintain the fuel load and they don't burn off in autumn because they don't have the knowledge, equipment or experience. Then they will blame everybody else when it all goes up in smoke. At the end of the day you can't really blame them because we just let them own rural land without a care, rule or responsibility. On the other hand I'm reminded of the guy over in Victoria who copped the fines for lopping trees close to his house...but after the fires went through his house was the only one still standing in the area. Anyway, hope the poor buggers get out of it Ok.
Just saw the news about the homes being lost. It is a shame the rain is overpowering one area while the other is tinder dry. Much the same as here between the west coast and central plains. One burns while the other floods. Good luck to all.
That's just the way it is Bill, a few hours of extreme weather, either way, can cause absolute devastion. Unfortunately, a lot of town folk move to the bush for a tree change lifestyle and they are just totally unaware of the dangers of bushfires, but the planning authorities continue to allow people to build in these areas. These few lines from a well known poem downunder, pretty much sum it up. The positive with the floods, is that the bulk of rain is falling in the catchment of the Murray Darling river system and hopefully might send some water down the whole system, as it is in very bad shape at the moment. RnR.
3000 hectares at Toodyay and 11,000 at Badgie: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/31/2783262.htm?section=justin
hi I am new here, found my way here from the Redpower forms Anyway last year I did 6 weeks on one farm in centrail Queensland driving the road trains to the crain depot, 8 johndeere headers (combines) all had a chain draging from the rear to control the static, remember geting onto one header as it was unloading into my truck at about 7.00pm it was dark and I got one big shock as I went onto the lader! could see the spark real clear! yes even with a chain draging on the the dry ground, must have come from my truck I had just driven back 35ks. And we did have a fire that got away, one header driven by a new driver had a pully driving the straw spredder do a bearing and droped sparks that started a fire that stoped harvesting for the day and did take 6 hours to put out, think that cost about $250000 in lost wheat and time. Hot dry days with wind in wheat, and then fire is not going to be good! Jake.
G'day AUSSIE TD-40, welcome to the Forum. Static electricity, for the want of a better explanation, and no one seems to have one, apart from maybe chaff igniting from around the engine, seems to be coming more of a problem with the newer machines. The straw choppers as well have started some fires, with the bigger machines, larger volumes of straw are being forced through them. RnR.
Hope things settle down for you down under folks. I live in the midwest, Illinois, we had one of the hottest summers on record, this year. The year before we hardly had any summer warm weather. We had lots of snow in December, three days of warm reduced the white stuff this last week, so will have to wait to see what the new year brings everyone.
Things sure have settled down, dirty4fun, this thread was posted through summer last year and it was one of the hottest summers on record here. We had 5 days straight over 40C in November as well as quite a few other days over 40C through the rest of the summer. This summer is shaping up to be one of the coolest summers on record, we have only had 1 day over 40C and we are into January already. We also had rain through December and there is likely to be more towards the end of January. RnR.
G'day Guy's, We had the first bushfire of the season here and it did get too close for comfort. I was driving home from work listening to the cricket when the message came over Sawpit Gully road was in flames. I rang home and my missus was already packed and took the family up to Morgan on the River Murray. I had to get past 2 road blocks to get home and I mentioned to a couple of CFS guys if they needed water I have a hug dam out the back of my farm which they can use. We setup the pump on the dam and I took my MF50B over and made an access road for the tankers. A call came over the radio the fire was changing and heading south and the guys face went white and said it's coming directly at us. Luckily they got it under control and my place was saved. With this being the first fire of the season one CFS guy said it was a mess with more cheifs spitting out different orders the guys didn't know which way to go. Was wasn't told in the news one unit was burnt out as when they got to the fire they found the pumps wouldn't work. This is the third fire close to home and in every case it's been a city slicker trying to be a weekend farmer on small blocks. The pic below is a property for sale 3 doors up from my farm. Cheers Bryan
It sounds like you had a close call, Bryan. It has been fairly quiet here for fires, a couple of small ones, but fortunately the weather has been reasonably cool and with the late rains, there is still a bit of green around. I have to say, the CFS blokes here are reasonably organised and the farmers have some pretty good fire fighting equipment as well. Fortunately we don't have the hobby farmer element, but there have been a few header fires over the last couple of years. It looks like you might have to get the MF50B cranked up and put in some wide fire breaks. Glad to hear everything turned out ok. RnR.
G'day RnR, Where abouts are ya mate, I'm up in the Adelaide Hills near Kanmantoo Cheers Bryan
G'day Bryan, I am at Mount Rat, on the Yorke Peninsula, about 20km north of Minlaton. RnR.
Isn't that the way it seems to happen. One part is under water and another is burning up. Glad the out come was good, way to close for comfort, I would bet. Some spring rains will set things right, for you I hope.
Better change that to fall rains for you down under, people. Sorry about that! As they say in Texas nothing is ever as right as rain, they are dry there, also.