I Saved One

[Ed Kennell 46,046]

I burned some trash in the burn barrel yesterday same as I've been doing for 60 years.  I came in, ate dinner and looked out about an hour later and saw smoke coming from around the shed door.  I ran out and cracked the door to see black smoke and intense heat.    Closed the door and ran to the other barn to turn on the hose.  Lucky I had the hose nearby to water the garden.

I cracked the door and the flames erupted in the front corner.   It took about 30 minutes to get things cooled down enough that I could go inside and concentrate the water on the hot spots.  This is a 30 yo T-111 shed that I covered with metal several years ago.   So I had heat between the metal and wood that I was finally able to get the water on.    Sure could have used you Don O.

Mrs. K wanted to call the local Fire Co.  but, I assured her I Got This.

I'm guessing a spark from the burn barrel found it's way under the metal and lit it up.

 

I had some vinyl siding stored overhead that all melted and covered everything.  Shelves full of plant bedding trays, rope, buckets, everything plastic melted.

 

Three square foot holes were burnt thru the floor and the corner wall where the fire started.     Repaired the holes today.

 

The lawn sweeper is really all that was lost.   It was right over the floor hole.

 

The log splitter and crab pots and traps were in the rear corner and were not damaged.

 

Some of the plastic duct on the Trac Vac melted and the paint on the 310 was damaged.  It may buff out with a buffing compound.

 

This can of starter fluid was sitting here on the Trac Vac Briggs.   Note the melted cap.    Me thinks I was seconds away from a total burn down.   The burn barrel has been relocated.

[ebinmaine 78,765]

Good save Ed! 

[MainelyWheelhorse 2,537]

Looks like you caught it just in time!

[953 nut 65,954]

22 minutes ago, Ed Kennell said:

Mrs. K wanted to call the local Fire Co.  but, I assured her I Got This.

           Should have called, this could have gotten much worse in a hurry.   Glad you got it out but as a former volunteer fireman I can tell you they would have been glad to roll up on an extinguished fire and would help you clear out the shed to be sure there were no hot spots.

[parsonsponyz 336]

Glad you're alright first and foremost and that the shed with all contents were relatively okay.

[squonk 46,495]

FD Love to use their Fire axes! 

 

 

We had a big construction job going on at work and there was a staircase that was boarded up on both ends. A smoke detector tripped on top of the stairs and the alarm went off and here come Geneva's finest. We searched for the detector and concluded it was in the stair well. Those guys whipped the axes out like they were six shooters! 

[nyquil junkie 272]

Burn barrels can ruin your day.  A few yrs ago while my GF was buring garden cleanup in the side yard, the yard caught fire 20 feet from the house.

Protip: You can't put out a grass fire by throwing a tarp over it. Sure it LOOKS like its out but who knew... plastic is flammable.

 

In my defense, it did buy me 3 min to get the hose.

[wallfish 19,966]

Glad you got it under control Ed.

(But I'm still going to bust your nuts at the BS!)

[kpinnc 18,160]

3 hours ago, Ed Kennell said:

Closed the door and ran to the other barn to turn on the hose. 

 

Cool head under pressure. You did well sir! 

[JoeM 9,910]

Minutes away from an insurance job! 

 

I quit burning years ago, I just throw it in the trash. They say it is better for the environment but IDK.

 

 

[Horsin'round 422]

Not the kind of excitement you want.  Glad you were able to control it and minimize damage. 

[JoeM 9,910]

Might want to convert an old WH? (did you think you got away?)

 

[Beap52 2,247]

At least no horses were damaged!

 

WOW that was close. 

 

Several years ago, my folks on vacation put their momma Vietnamese sow and pigs in a temporary pen inside dad's shop while they were gone.  The heat lamp knocked down into the straw on the cement floor.  Someone saw smoke coming from  the building and called fire department who called me.  By the time the fire department got there the fire was out.  The building was airtight enough the fired lacked oxygen.  

 

I was burning a brush pile a  couple of years ago.  Some of the hot ashes floated onto some  dead trees on the neighbor's land.  I ended up cutting the dead trees down in order to extinguish them.

 

What a mess.  Most plastic articles warped.  The drywall on the ceilings and wall was smoke covered. But the cans of gasoline didn't ignite nor all of the shop chemicals. 

 

Looks like Ed and my folks were fortunate. 

 

Fires cause me great caution.  I would rather not make the front page of the local newspaper!

[953 nut 65,954]

1 hour ago, Beap52 said:

The building was airtight enough the fired lacked oxygen.  

You are lucky that you didn't have a backflash when you opened the door allowing oxygen in.

[kpinnc 18,160]

14 hours ago, JoeM said:

They say it is better for the environment but IDK.

 

Burning trash might be a problem since we have no idea what chemicals are in our garbage. I will defer only due to that. 

 

But until the Forestry Service stops doing controlled burns all over my state, I'm still gonna burn brush as long as it's safe to do so. Right now it's too dry, but that will eventually change. 

[adsm08 4,436]

3 minutes ago, kpinnc said:

until the Forestry Service stops doing controlled burns all over my state,

 

Hopefully they never do.

 

The hippie tree huggers got their way in California and pretty much all forestry, including controlled burns, stopped.

 

It is estimated that at the time the Spanish first made it to California a few million acres were lost to wild fires every year. By the 1970s is was under 200K acres. Since the controlled burns stopped it is creeping back above 1 million acres a year again.

[kpinnc 18,160]

1 minute ago, adsm08 said:

Hopefully they never do.

 

 

Exactly my point. 

 

Controlled burns prevent forest fires from getting out of hand. No underbrush, nothing to burn. 

Edited 14 hours ago by kpinnc

[adsm08 4,436]

Ed, you got lucky. My grandfather lost his whole garage about 8 years ago when his 47 New Yorker backfired through the carb and blew sparks onto the cardboard he used to catch the oil drips.

[c-series don 11,902]

@Ed Kennell I’m glad to hear that you made a good stop on the fire, but I agree with Mrs. K and you should have called the FD. Never in my 38 years as an active volunteer fireman have I gone to a call and heard “You shouldn’t have called the fire department” We as firefighters are there to help our community in a time of need no questions asked. Thermo cameras help us find hidden hot spots to prevent rekindling of fire. Also happy to hear that you didn’t get hurt and have no major damage. 

[JoeM 9,910]

10 hours ago, kpinnc said:

no idea what chemicals are in our garbage

Good point, I question even the cardboard and it's coatings not to mention plastics now.

Our trash now goes through a transfer station, from what I understand it is the first step in sorting and recycling of trash before it goes to the dump. And I see the local dump siphons off methane as a byproduct. 

No issue with burning brush. 

 

8 hours ago, c-series don said:

Thermo cameras help us find hidden hot spots

Made me think about when my next door neighbors were at their other house in FLA and the smoke detectors went off. It triggered an automatic call to the VFD. They showed up, (I had the keys to let them in) and I must say they did not have axes but some sophisticated air sampling detectors. All donned air bottles and was very gentle on the house. Very impressive. 

[953 nut 65,954]

10 hours ago, kpinnc said:

I'm still gonna burn brush as long as it's safe to do so

In North Carolina, the golden rule is "if it doesn’t grow, don’t burn it." State law strictly forbids burning man-made materials like trash, plastics, and construction debris. Yard waste can only be burned where local laws permit it, and open burning is entirely prohibited during statewide burn bans or Code Orange/Red air quality days.

When we built our house in the forest nothing was burned. The larger logs went to a saw mill and the smaller pieces went to a mulch company.

[kpinnc 18,160]

45 minutes ago, 953 nut said:

In North Carolina, the golden rule is "if it doesn’t grow, don’t burn it." State law strictly forbids burning man-made materials like trash, plastics, and construction debris. Yard waste can only be burned where local laws permit it, and open burning is entirely prohibited during statewide burn bans or Code Orange/Red air quality days.

 

Yep. Burning brush when it is safe to do it is legal outside any town or city limits. That is where I live. Trimming bushes and trees around my property accumulates a fair amount of brush that I burn once every couple years. For the past several months it has been far too dry, so the current pile has to wait until wetter weather comes. I should have done it over the winter but I knew that several different members of the local wild life had taken up residency until spring. By the time it was warmer it had also been dry for a very long time. 

 

I had a neighbor once who liked to build a fire in his back yard occasionally. We lived in town at that time. He would always bring out a pack of hot dogs, and place them beside his chair. If the police showed up he would claim he was cooking his dinner. Not my choice but it worked for him on more than one occasion. 

 

 

 

 

[Handy Don 16,540]

Similar no-burn regulations in my vicinity.

Our trash goes to waste-to-energy facility a few miles away (the residue from it is slowly filling a nearby quarry pit 😉).