Posted on 01/20/2008 7:06:03 PM PST by BGHater
The recent unusual weather patterns have accelerated one of the strangest phenomena witnessed in the bush: an unprecedented number of haysheds have been spontaneously bursting into flames.
Throughout the grain belt, it has been the worst season ever for spontaneous hayshed fires, according to the executive officer of the Australian Fodder Industry Association, Colin Peace.
He estimates there have been 400 incidents of spontaneous combustion of haysheds in NSW alone.
From northern NSW to South Australia, haystacks and haysheds have been bursting into flames.
Drought, followed by summer rains, microbial growth in the stack and then hot, dry conditions can result in the spontaneous combustion of hay.
"The combination of flammable material, moisture and bacteria - you get those three things together, they generate heat and it spontaneously combusts," Mr Peace said.
Most of the fires are occurring in wheat and barley too poor to reap because of the drought. Instead, farmers baled them for hay.
One theory is the wheat and barley have a higher level of sugar than the usual oaten hay, leading to increased microbial activity.
Another view is that the hay has not been properly dried or cured. Hay is routinely checked with a moisture probe.
Large bales must have a moisture content of less than 14 to 18 per cent. A moisture content of more than 18 to 22 per cent puts them at risk.
The heavy summer rain has penetrated haysheds, and soaked into bales.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Try not to barn green or wet hay. (Tip of the Day)
Seems counter-intuitive.
“Another view is that the hay has not been properly dried or cured. Hay is routinely checked with a moisture probe.”
One thing I learned years ago was that if storm clouds were approaching, hay was baled & put in the barn. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t dry enough. A couple days of rain will ruin hay on the ground. Of course, sometimes it got hot & smoke rose from the barn.
Think compost pile.
Too damp and it becomes like a giant compost pile producing it’s own heat. Conditions just right and it can catch fire.
the moisture content is critical.
wet hay will spontaneously combust.
my father used to get us up early in the morning to watch the
gentlemen farmers’ haystacks burn in the dark.
our stacks never burned because we bailed our hay at the correct moisture content.
*** A couple days of rain will ruin hay on the ground. Of course, sometimes it got hot & smoke rose from the barn.***
Years ago here, a man would bring in a semi-load of Alfalfa hay. He sold it by the ton so it was baled rather wet to get more by weight.
It often smoked and putting it in a barn was sheer misery in the hot summer.
There's a bird that incubates its eggs by building a compost heap then laying the eggs in it. She controls the heat by constantly adjusting the pile. Look here.
"They do not incubate their eggs with their body heat in the orthodox way, but bury them. They are best known for building massive nest-mounds of decaying vegetation, which the male attends, adding or removing litter to regulate the internal heat while the eggs hatch. "
There’s a landscaping place around here with mulch piles the size of houses. Every few years one of the piles combusts.
I’m not a farm guy, so I will defer to the haymakers and former haymakers here. But under the right conditions, a compost pile can generate some serious heat....a lot more than you’d believe.
Were any "Yutes" present?
Wet or green hay rots, the decomposition generates heat, making it rot faster...and so on.
So can a huge pile of dirty laundry. Dirty rags generate their own heat too.
Problem is when it’s wet on the inside and dry on the outside. The moist rotting core generates heat which is trapped by the dry outer blanket. The temperature reaches the kindling point of the blanket and “puff”.
That’s why they have “haylofts”. It is imperative to keep hay dry.
Grandpa had a barn catch fire from damp hay. Bacteria can generate enough heat to make hay catch fire. Dad says that even weeks afterward some of the hay in the ruins would have enough heat that if it was disturbed and air/oxygen rushed in it would burst into flame again.
I was never up on exactly why, but every farm kid knew that you don’t bale wet hay.
“to watch the gentlemen farmers’ haystacks burn in the dark.”
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Hyuk! Yuk!
When there is enough moisture in hay, bacteria start a fermentation process to break down sugars and starches in the plant matter. If there is sufficient moisture (usually more than 22 to 25% by weight), you’ll see the temperature in the bale start to rise rapidly after about 10 to 14 days.
Hay should be baled with a low enough moisture to prevent this. For alfalfa hay in small bales (bales that you, as a single person, could pick up by hand), this is no more than about 18% moisture. In the “big bales” — ie, bales that are 1000 to 2000 lbs per bale (3x3x8’, or 3x4x8, or 4x4x8’, or big round bales), you need even lower moisture - like around 11 to 14%, no more.
There are preservatives you can put into the hay as you’re baling it to prevent the bacteria from starting the fermentation process (eg, proprionic acid, lactic acid, etc), but hay buyers don’t like buying bales that are 25% water.
We baled most of our hay with no more than 12% moisture. In Nevada, getting enough moisture to bale without turning the hay into dust with the baler is the problem, not baling hay that is too wet. But even hay baled in Nevada’s high desert will go up in flames if the bales get wet down inside the stack. Our neighbor’s big bales went up in flames one winter and he baled it correctly — some snow had melted, run down a tear in a tarp and wetted the interface between two 1-ton bales. It wasn’t a problem until the first warm week of spring, then it took off.
If you’re ever buying hay and you crack open a bale, here’s how you know there was “too much” moisture: If there was just a “little bit too much” moisture, the hay will smell like pipe tobacco instead of hay. It will have a slightly off-green color to it - sort of grey-green. It might have a light haze of mold in it too — don’t feed moldy hay to horses. Cattle eat it OK, but not horses. If you want to know why, ask your vet.
As you go up in moisture, the hay turns tan, then brownish, and the tobacco odor goes from a nice pipe tobacco odor to something really rank. When you get up to 25 to 28% moisture, you’ll see that the hay is black. If it has had sufficient time, you might even see some ash in there.
But the tobacco odor is a sure-fire tell that the hay has a little too much moisture.
Yes, it sounds like either someone didn't want to wait long enough, or they didn't know how to put up hay.
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