About 3 years in the past, the day earlier than the anticipated first frost of the season, Bledsoe County farmer and retired agriculture trainer Bobby Loyd was once baling late-fall hay with plans to wrap it for silage. On at the moment, he mowed till round dinner when he close the tractor off for a brief meal spoil. As he settled again into his seat to select up the place he had left off, the tractor wouldn’t get started. “I believed that was once abnormal,” he says. However, taking a look to get again to paintings, he jumped it off along with his pickup truck, hooked it to the baler and began baling.
The oddity nonetheless at the back of his thoughts, he determined to test and notice if the tractor would get started if he grew to become it back down. “I baled perhaps 15 bales and close it off,” he says. “This time, once I jumped it off the battery was once so low that I couldn’t even get the ability takeoff to interact,” he says.
Considering it was once a topic with the battery, he went into the city and acquired a brand new one. Then, after changing the battery, he was once in a position to function any other half-hour and then he pulled up, stopped and were given on any other tractor in order that he may start bunching hay, readying it for wrapping at sunlight the following morning.
Via this time, it was once darkish, and Loyd was once on the reverse finish of the sector completing up for the day. He regarded up and noticed the opposite tractor that he’d parked in the course of the sector with a mild underneath it that obviously shouldn’t be there. Attaining for the fireplace extinguisher at the tractor he was once stacking with and using around the box on the most pace that he may nonetheless keep on, Loyd raced around the box.
As he drew close to, he noticed that the flames had been already blazing up underneath the windshield on the very finish of the motor of his parked tractor. “I sprayed the fireplace extinguisher empty up underneath the tractor,” he says. At one level, Loyd believed that he had succeeded in saving the tractor. “However then it puffed again up,” he says. Grabbing the fireplace extinguisher out of the tractor that was once on fireplace, Loyd attempted once more.
He was once not able to make any headway this time.
A passerby arrived at the scene, asking how he may assist. Loyd despatched him to retrieve any other fireplace extinguisher that he stored saved in his pickup truck which was once additionally parked within the box. Whilst he was once away, Loyd tried to unhook the baler. Sadly, his would-be helper, having been not able to find the extinguisher, returned empty-handed. So as a substitute, Loyd requested for his assist in unhooking the baler. He was hoping to take a series and drag the 2 aside. Unfortunately, the tractor and baler had been attached with a selfmade pin and the tractor was once parked in somewhat of a bind. “I had the jack down and the force up,” he says. “I couldn’t get them aside.”
The tractor fireplace improved temporarily. Even if Loyd had also known as 911, by the point fireplace responders arrived simplest a short while later, the apparatus was once misplaced. “The fenders had been melting and had been losing on two giant tires filled with fluid,” he says. “I advised [the passerby] that it wasn’t value getting killed over. Let’s simply again up and let it burn.” The tractor and baler had been overall losses.
Despite the fact that he’ll by no means know evidently, taking a look again on the occasions as they befell, Loyd believes that the tractor fireplace was once brought about by means of a brief within the battery cable. Within the logo of tractor he was once using, the principle battery cable comes at the proper facet of the motor and crosses excessive of it going to the starter. “The one factor that is sensible to me is that I by hook or by crook were given a brief [in the cable] and that was once what was once draining the battery,” he says.
Loyd considers himself lucky. “I by no means park a baler within the box,” he says. “However as a result of I used to be on the lookout for the ones different bales, I hadn’t pulled this tractor again within the shed but.”
Had it now not been for this slight trade to his regimen, there very most probably would had been a barn fireplace as neatly. Loyd additionally considers himself blessed that, as is every now and then the case with tractor and gear fires, little of his crop was once misplaced to the fireplace because it was once confined to the world round his tractor and baler.
Reasons of Apparatus Fires
Whilst now not essentially foreseeable, Loyd’s tale illustrates the significance of fireside protection and prevention. Mike Mathews, box provider supervisor with TriGreen Apparatus, says that whilst he doesn’t see a large number of tractor and gear fires, those who he does see are memorable. TriGreen, a John Deere dealership with shops in McMinnville, Winchester, Manchester, Mt. Juliet and Cookeville, Tennessee, in addition to in Alabama, serves many farmers within the Sequatchie Valley house and past.
In Mathews’s revel in, whilst fires may also be brought about by means of electric fires such because the tractor fireplace skilled by means of Loyd, lightning moves and static electrical energy, maximum of the ones fires that he sees are thermal occasions.
“We’ve got some seasonal farmers, like your hay and farm animals farmers, that put positive apparatus within the shed and it sits for months at a time looking forward to the following hay crop to be in a position to reap,” Mathews says.
In a few of these circumstances, birds will construct a nest on most sensible of the engine and because the exhaust heats up when the tractor is going to the sector, the nest ignites. Different occasions, he says, bearings can cross down and the buyer doesn’t catch it in time. “It is going to warmth to create a thermal match from crop mud or chafe,” Mathews says.
As for balers, whether or not spherical or sq., to forestall mould manufacturers bale their hay when it has a low moisture content material. “Usually, a bearing will run most probably across the 130- to 150-degree vary,” Mathews says. “Beneath customary prerequisites, when it [the bearing] will get a large number of put on or begins to fail, you’ll be able to see that stand up into the 250-plus-degree vary.”
At that temperature, the dry crop residue, now not the hay itself, gets into positive spaces towards the ones bearings and warmth up and ignite.
Fireplace Prevention
To forestall a lot of these fires, Mathews recommends pre- and/or post-season inspections carried out by means of a dealership. “We’ve got a wintry weather provider particular,” he says. “We inspire our shoppers to do an end-of-season or preseason inspection. We do it at a reduced fee. Usually, we do those in our gradual season the place we will be able to be offering a greater worth for the buyer.”
As a part of the inspection procedure, belts and chains are got rid of, shafts are grew to become, bearings are checked, and so they pay attention with skilled ears for noise to resolve how tough bearings are in play in an effort to catch them earlier than they cross bad. As neatly, bearings are packed and different kinds of preventative upkeep are carried out. Whilst a lot of these inspections can appear pricey, they’re neatly well worth the funding relating to fireplace prevention and downtime all through the harvest season.
Mathews makes use of the instance of the dealership’s hay shoppers. “They don’t get to time table once they harvest,” he says. “It is dependent such a lot at the climate and their paintings time table. A large number of occasions, our hay manufacturers and smaller farm animals farmers are ready the place they’ve to do it once they get off paintings all through the week or at the weekends. They’ve were given a decent window on account of the elements and different components they’ve no keep watch over over.”
It’s now not simply the chance of fireside that the dealership promotes inspections. “It’s the good thing about having the gadget in a position to visit the sector when you wish to have it,” Mathews says. On the other hand, thermal occasions are an issue. “In the event you don’t care for your gadget and the bearing fails and it catches the baler on fireplace, then that’s going to hold over in your crop,” he says.
The Operator’s Position
Inspections and upkeep apart, operators with open station tractors too can play a job in fireplace prevention by means of listening and staring at for indicators of kit failure. On the other hand, on account of their facilities and the actual fact that they’re enclosed inside of a cab, operators of cab tractors may also be at a slight downside. Those operators would possibly not pay attention the gadget run in order that they don’t catch that slight squeal or really feel that little little bit of vibration that would point out some form of apparatus failure.
To this finish, TriGreen encourages house owners that can be new to apparatus or house owners or operators who is also stepping up from older to more recent apparatus to wait the various buyer occasions and clinics the dealership provides. All through those occasions, shoppers are inspired to take proactive measures like taking a leaf blower to blow crop residue off the machines each time they end the use of them.
“There were occasions the place a bearing may well be within the means of failing, they [the producer] end for the afternoon and get into their truck and pressure away. Then two hours later they get a choice that their apparatus is on fireplace,” Mathews says.
Appearing this sort of precautionary measure may assist save you this from going down.
The Producer’s Position
Mathews defined that as a preventative measure, maximum producers do a excellent activity earlier than they free up a product to marketplace to test for untimely screw ups or any defects in subject matter or workmanship. In addition they carefully observe any fireplace occasions to be sure that it had not anything to do with the producing means of the apparatus.
As neatly, balers and a few different kinds of apparatus continuously include water fireplace extinguishers that may be refilled and repressurized by means of the landlord. It’s much less not unusual for tractors to come back supplied with those, so it’s all the time a good suggestion to get one in all your individual.
A Expensive Prevalence
Whilst a top proportion of kit fires don’t seem to be a complete loss, due to diligent operators, they are able to turn out pricey. “The cleaner you stay the gadget, the fewer probability you could have of an match,” Mathews says. “Usually, of those who we see which are a complete loss, I pay attention feedback indicating, for instance, a hydraulic leak that the operator was once acutely aware of and didn’t make an effort to mend. The leak allowed the crop residue to turn out to be saturated with hydraulic oil and ,in the event that they get a hotspot from a bearing, it lighting fixtures up.”
Fortunately, maximum manufacturers have insurance coverage, and Mathews advises that when you don’t recently have it, put money into some. However, whilst insurance coverage would possibly duvet maximum of your loss relating to apparatus, it doesn’t duvet the ensuing downtime. Mathews’ greatest piece of recommendation relating to fireplace prevention and protection is to stay your apparatus blank and be meticulous about upkeep. And, in any case, saving your self must all the time be your most sensible precedence.
Despite the fact that Loyd did have insurance policy on his apparatus valued at what he concept it was once value, he did have bother changing it. For instance, his tractor, although used, was once only some years previous and in excellent running order. He struggled to seek out one thing similar to switch each it and his baler with the to be had insurance coverage price range.
He continues to apply fireplace protection and prevention measures discovered from his stories as an educator and a farmer and hopes by no means once more to revel in any other apparatus fireplace.
This text at first seemed within the July/August 2023 factor of Passion Farms mag.