Burning pile of trees, wont start HELP!

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We have had our land cleared and they left piles of the trees for us to burn off. It has been 3 weeks and my husband finally got a day off to do it and they wont burn. Are they still to green? It hasnt rained and they told us as well as lots others that ten days after they are brought down is the ideal time to burn. Well it isnt working. We think they are still to green. Any suggestions on starting etc. Thanks Erika

-- Erika (aewood11@juno.com), April 29, 2002

Answers

yes I would say they are definitely too green; it is spring and they are full of sap. Youre gonna have to let them dry out for at least a few weeks (preferably longer) unless you can get a large hot fire going first with something else for fuel. I just finished burning off several brush piles that I had taken down in January. They started nicely with cardboard boxes and a tire (just use 1 as the pollution pours copiously from a burning tire). If you have a place where you can push at least the stumps to rot on their own that would be preferable, cut the rest for firewood and burn or chip the branches.

-- Walt K. in SW PA (kraterkrew@lcsys.net), April 29, 2002.

You pobally need gogo juice aka gas , also some dry material to start it.

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@hotmail.com), April 29, 2002.

A bale of straw, a gallon or 2 of diesel fuel (heating oil, kerosene). Place bale under in middle (well, on the side the breeze is hitting) somehow. Soak the diesel in the bale, splash on the bigger parts of the green trees above the bale. Light.

This is mildly dangerous, you are working with flame & combustable fuel. Be careful.

You need a hot, hot flame that lasts long enough to dry out the wood & ignite it. Once the bigger pieces are burning they will make enough heat to dry out enough to continue burning. You will need to monitor & restack branches on the outside over the heat of the fire as it burns down.

You want the wood stacked high, tall. You want to start the fire on the bottom, so the heat goes through the pile and heats & dries the rest. A big flat pile of green wood flat on the ground is difficult to keep burning.

Do not use gasoline. It works of course, but is way too dangerous. The other fuels I mentioned are midly dangerous. Gasoline is explosively so.

I never burned really big trees this way, I'm thinking more saplings & brush in my mind. If you have foot thick trees 30 feet long then my advise is ok, but you need to adjust my comments some on restacking and amount of initial heat needed, etc. :)

--->Paul

-- paul (ramblerplm@hotmail.com), April 29, 2002.


Patty, PLEASE, NO GASOLINE! The vapors roll off and can spread. Use less volatile diesel or a kerosene/diesel mix.

Saw a clip on television just last week where party goers or others used a highly flammable fuel to start a bonfire. They had flames everywhere for a couple of seconds. Sure hope that no one was severly injured. Best example I had seen of the vapor spreading idea.

-- Notforprint (Not@thekeyboard.com), April 29, 2002.


You might also want to notify your local fire dept. that you would like to do a controlled burn so that they can be on alert. They'll also advise you of the laws about burning, for example only b/w the hours of 6pm and 6am, etc. Failure to follow "the rules" could result in some mighty hefty fines.

-- shakeytails in KY (shakeytails@yahoo.com), April 29, 2002.


Whole trees are a funny lot to burn. I've seen green trees burn up in nothing flat, and I've had a pile of pine that sat for 6 months and just would not burn until I got a hot spot started with a generous amount of diesel fuel.

-- Eric in TN (eric_m_stone@yahoo.com), April 29, 2002.

We just burned up 3 slashpile that were sitting around for 4 years. They were very punky, soggy thangs, and it was raining. We did go get a burn permit from the fire dept ($20) to avoid a possible citation for much more. The permit required us to be 100ft from any structure (not possible, but they never came to look.) Also to have a backhoe/bulldozer on site, which we did anyway and it really was a massive help, but if you've got your piles where they can be burnt, it's not so important. It also required us to have a burn fan. THAT is what you need. It's like a turbo-bellows in effect. We got a fire going down under the pile, but when we put the burn fan on it, wow did it take off! Cost $30/day for a 2ft gas powered burn fan, well worth it. But don't use gasoline as an igniter on the pile itself...the fumes can explode. NOT worth it. Keep feeding small stuff into the heart of the fire, and the burn fire will really make that fire cook.

-- snoozy (bunny@northsound.net), April 29, 2002.

If you really must burn the stuff and cant wait until it is dry, try mising some gasoline with Tide powdered soap. You end up with a flamable mixture with the consistancy of Napalm which will stick to what ever you pour it on and then burn like hell when you lite it.

BE VERY CAREFUL when using flamable liquids because the flamable vapors are heavier than air and will flow away from your fire site down hill and collect in low areas. If you are standing in one of those low areas when the fire gets lit you will wind up doing an imitation of Joan of Arc when the vapors touch off. Not kidding here saw it happen, wasn't pretty!

Cheers

-- Joe Longshaw (luddite@positech.net), May 03, 2002.


Hi, WAXED cardboard boxes (think produce) burn very hot. Probably safer than liquid flamables.

-- Mona Jensen (keypenjones@centurytel.net), May 05, 2002.

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