Burning a brush pile.

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I have a fairly large brush pile, four years old. It is made up of walnut, oak, locust trees cleared when we build a lake. We would like to burn it. Never having done this before.....where do you start? We know we want to burn it when the wind is out of the south, if the fire gets away from us, its only 50 yards downhill to the lake. The pile is roughly 125 feet long, 15 feet wide, and 15 feet high. There are whole trees, and branches. There is some dirt around the root wads, but that can be leveled later. I have heard of using diesel fuel, any ideas as to how much to start a fire this big?

-- Rickstir (rpowell@email.ccis.edu), November 20, 2001

Answers

In our area, property owners usually request assistance from the local fire company. The fire company uses the opportunity to hold a controlled burn, while instructing the volunteers in fire-fighting skills. That also takes much of the liability off the property owner! Worth looking into....

-- Mary (zoots25@hotmail.com), November 20, 2001.

Or run an ad to have folks come in and cut the wood out of it for heat purposes. A pile that large will get out of hand VERY QUICKLY. Puts off a LOT of HEAT and SPARKS. Don't do it. Really.

-- Gailann Schrader (gtschrader@aol.com), November 20, 2001.

This pile is WAY to big to burn all at once. Start a small fire at least fifty feet away (100' would be safer) and use the wood from your big pile to feed the smaller fire. It will probably take days to burn this way, but much safer.

-- Skip (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), November 20, 2001.

Be sure there is no poison ivy in the pile, as the smoke from this burning can get in your lungs and cause serious problems (including death).

-- Jennifer L. (Northern NYS) (jlance@nospammail.com), November 20, 2001.

With a pile that large you'd better call your state division of forestry or whatever agency it is in your area that has responsibility for brush and debris burning. A fair part of the nation is in drought or dry conditions and it wouldn't do for a huge fire such as that one will become to get away from you and start a still larger fire. Good way to end up personally liable.

Contact your forestry dept and ask about what you'll need to do to safely burn that pile. Probably going to want you to at least have a tractor with a disk harrow and may want you to wait for a specific weather pattern.

If there's entire oak, walnut and locust trees in there that's a heck of a waste of good wood to simply burn it like that.

={(Oak)-

-- Live Oak (live-oak@atlantic.net), November 20, 2001.



wait till you get a couple inches of snow,, then light it up

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), November 20, 2001.

Please be sure you don't live where such a pile might be considered a habitat with critters living in it, and you wouldn't be able to burn it. Also, a lot of FDs don't do controlled burns anymore (since many are so understaffed that they have enough real fires to train on) and if they do, they will charge you.

Another option is to put out an ad to see if someone will clean it just to get the wood. We have a chipper/shredder, and what doesn't get cut up for firewood/kindling gets either shredded and put around for mulch or if the wood is too rotted for burning it gets thrown back in the trees to decompose.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), November 20, 2001.


The idea of asking someone to get the wood out sounds great, but I would not do it . If anyone is hurt during the process you know who is liable, YOU. I know most homesteaders would never sue anybody, but if someone really gets hurt badly, you will have a lawyer on your doorstep the next day.

Sorry for being a pessimist, but it is reality in this case.

The idea of snow on the ground seems to be the best one listed so far. How did you ever get a pile this size anyway?

Talk to you later.

-- Bob in WI (bjwick@hotmail.com), November 20, 2001.


I have burnt many a brush pile in my day, but I would not attempt a pile that large. That is an accident waiting to happen once that baby gets going.

I would not let people take it simply because of liability purposes. So I would suggest paying someone who is insured to remove it or let Mother Nature consume it.

If none of those options are feasible, pour some old fryolator oil (a nearby restaurant will likely give you all you want) on one end and try to control the burn.

Perhaps a gas powered pump with a couple lengths of hose stuck in the nearby water source would help when you need the water.

-- Glenn (gj_usa1@yahoo.com), November 21, 2001.


Thank you all for your input. We are going to call the local FD and see if they can be of help. We are going to offer them a bar-b-que for all the FD and EMTs as general appreciation for the jobs they do, and as a "thank you" for the burn. No we won't forget the county law enforecement guys and gals. They have helped with tresspassers in the past.

When the pile was fresh, and ripe for cutting, we told everyone we could think of that they could come and cut for free.....no takers. At the time, we lived in the double wide and didn't need the firewood, or since we were commuting (still cursed living in the city) we didn't have the time to cut it. Now it is dried up and would be heck on chains.

Starting it at one end is a good idea, as is renting a gas pump and using water from the lake if we have too. And it probably won't be too long until we have snow on the ground.

The only critters we have found that like to habitat the pile is rabbits and coyotes. Both of whom have plenty of other places to live on our farm. We have two other smaller brush piles also made while building the lake. They are out of sight of the house and we will not disturb them. We have also cut and formed brush piles out of cedar trees that we cleared from the pastures near the house. There are three 1 to 2 acre food plots cleared out of grown up pastures elsewhere. The residue was piled as protection for critters.

The pile is an eyesore, and the view of the hillside will be better for it if the pile can be burned. I'll post the solution, if and when it happens.

Thanks again to all.

Rickstir

-- Rickstir (rpowell@email.ccis.edu), November 21, 2001.



Approx. 12 years ago --The man who owns the property next to us burned a brush pile and 3 days later there were no visible fire. BUT the wind picked up and burned the woods all the way up to w/in 10ft. of our house!!!The man was gone--I was at work and my husband was a sleep. He just "happened" to wake up because our dogs were barking! He called the 911 and the were here in less than 5 minutes. My husband was wetting our house with the watering hose to keep the sparks from catching our roof on fire!!!

Last spring--the man who owns the property next to our farm-- was burning underbrush. It burned out w/ the exception of a few stumps. He left and 5 days later we get a call from the fire cheif who tells us the woods are on fire next to our pasture! (We had been at the farm that morning and saw no signs of smoke or flames.)I rushed to the farm--smoke was so thick that I could not see ten feet in any one direction. Wild animals were running in every direction.

Please let the fire department burn your brush pile!! Or leave it for the rabbits,mice and birds!!!

-- Debbie T in N.C. (rdtyner@mindspring.com), November 21, 2001.


Rickstir, We have a very similar problem on the 20 acres we just purchased. It was logged about 3 yrs. ago and there is a pile about 70-80 ft. long, 20 ft. high and 30 ft wide, among other smaller piles, everywhere on the property. We considered just about all of the suggestions that have been posted here and have decided to use a combination of many. We have been working on taking out the usable firewood ourselves, making smaller piles of whatever is left over. Some of these smaller piles we will burn and some we will take a chipper/shredder to and use it for mulching. We do also plan on waiting till there is alot of snow on the ground to burn even the smaller piles although it is a very common practice here to burn huge brush piles during the rains in autumn (in fact, we just had about 2-3 weeks where it seemed like everybody was burning everything the smoke was so thick!).

-- Lisa (mountainlady@imbris.com), November 24, 2001.

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