A fire like that can burn and smolder for days. If you have a pit with bare dirt underneith as you say then don't worry about it, especially if said pit is now a steaming puddle.

 

Hey.

If it has been burning all day, it takes awhile for it to cool down...like a grill.

Rest easy if there's no glowing embers.

RF

 

It is a steaming puddle~ I keep going out there and spraying it some more. I really wasn't too sure about this to start with~ and now I'm really not so sure. Seems like it was an awful lot of work to get rid of a very little bit of the wood........
And now its getting dark and I'm afraid to stop looking at it............

 

Now I know why there's so many ponds in your neck of the woods;-) The old firepit will make a nice nesting area for bluegills...

 

Seems like it was an awful lot of work to get rid of a very little bit of the wood.......

We usually combine them with neighbors and beer and make merry.

 

Now I know why there's so many ponds in your neck of the woods;-) The old firepit will make a nice nesting area for bluegills...

Probably~
I'm getting the idea now that I may have over reacted a bit.....LOL!
In my defense I was in living in Southern California until very recently and fire scares me still! I probably will have to move the fire pit now though~ it's probably no good now that I've drowned it so completely huh?

Having the nieghbors over for beer is a good idea~ but I'd have to buy a LOT of beer! I have enough debris now for a month of Sundays and I've not even finished pulling it all out of the woods yet.

So what are these people I see with HUGE piles burning doing? How do they keep the fire from getting away ~ I was worried with my little fire surrounded by bricks~ I see HUGE piles smoking in front yards when I drive the boy to school in the mornings ~ just a big old pile of wood and debris.........do they just let that burn all day and all night? They can't really be watching it all that time can they?

 

we just let ours burn. When we do a large burn. We shove entire trees and logs in with a tractor.

This fire will look to be out DAYS latter. Just throw some wood on and POOF up in flame it gose.

I know in the winter time the fire pile is hot for months.

 

we do not watch ours. We do for a little bit till the huge tree high flames die down then its off to doing what ever we were doing.

 

We had a scare with one of those as well. Especially scary because we did check the burn site for coal seams before starting, but it kept boiling off water for so long that it made us wonder if we missed something.

We ended up watering it down for a day and then digging it out to make sure it hadn't reached coal. It hadn't, and the steamed soil was saved, sieved and use to mix with our compost to make our own container mix last year. Not the ideal way to sterilize soil, but at least it made our work worth the effort.

If you do live in a coal area, I'd keep it wet today and dig it out tomorrow-just in case you lit a seam. If you have no coal in your area I'd just keep helping it cool with water on and off until it cools down. Might be some old turf or peat underneath smouldering off slowly.

Lynda

 

I generally burn my woodpiles in the evening, after the wind dies down. Once the initial "fireball" is down to burning just steady, I'm gone. I'll still check during the night, but don't make a huge production of it. In the morning if ash is covering all of the embers, I feel safe to leave it at that. Burning after dark, it's easier to keep an eye on your fire, and if it should get away from you, that's easy to spot too.
In my case, I'm burning in paddocks that the pigs have already gone through and tilled the dirt, so it's not like a pasture full of dry grass. Use common sense about where you're burning and what "other" fuels might go up too.

 

Once I had a large burn pile going at our weekend place in the country that had some 30-40 ft. trees in it. After two days, the trees had still not completely burned. I watered them and the pile for almost 2 hours before we went home. The next weekend, the trees were gone, even though it rained that week.

 

I've pushed up some monster piles with a D6, burned for about a week. Got some sand into one of the piles, burned it, then about two to three months later I was spreading out the sand pile with my little yanmar tractor and some of the wood I uncovered started burning! It had sat there and smoldered for months!

I am burning brush right now, but just little (six foot tall or so) piles. I use the landscape rake on my tiny tractor to push them up, then stack by hand what I missed, then go to the next area and start over. I have about six of the piles right now, and I'll push up some more tomorrow. It got windy today so I only burned the more sheltered ones.

 

I have burnpiles that burn for days and days.... thats good, the next day i go out its easy to stoke the fire up again.

if the pile is cleaned all around it, let it burn out. after the fire goes out alot of solid stuff smolders till its ashes.

 

Numero Uno. Never burn with the wind gusting. Late in the evening is generally when I do most of my burning. If the grass is green and no chance of it catching on fire I may burn during the daytime.

Numero Dose! You don't have to burn it all at once. I have enough brush around that I could catch the world on fire if I tried to burn it all at once. Just burn a little bit at a time.

Number 3. Learn to use that brush pile to cook something. Build you a nice small fire and use the coals to do some dutch oven cooking or just roast weinnies. You be doing a chore and fixing dinner at the same time. Kill two birds with one stone.

 

Oh, what I wouldn't give to have a burn pile!....<longing look in eye> I have brush and thorns and more brush and more thorns in piles all over the place just waiting for enough rain for them to lift the burning ban. I keep having to move these piles because I need that spot for something.. I have to move another one soon to sow more oats for green manure...

 

Oh, what I wouldn't give to have a burn pile!....<longing look in eye> I have brush and thorns and more brush and more thorns in piles all over the place just waiting for enough rain for them to lift the burning ban. I keep having to move these piles because I need that spot for something.. I have to move another one soon to sow more oats for green manure...

Heck, just lite them up. Worse case they come put them out.loo :flame:

 

I once accidentally set off an underground peat fire in Alaska while smoking out some bees (I use that term loosely - they flew, they stung, they lived in a group) in the in a hole in the ground in the pasture. The resulting mess burned about an acre before we got it contained. Lots and lots of digging. Don't know if they have peat where you are.

 

how do I tell if I have peat or coal under it?
I'm ready to give up and live with it.
Hubby is most definitely NOT ready to give up. He's going to show me how safe it is he says..........

 

If it is a hole, you might leave a garden hose run in it all night.

Really no idea how to check for a coal seam near the surface. I suspect if you dug down with a posthole digger about 3' and didn't bring up any coal residue you would be OK. There are some coal seam fires which have been burning for some years now.

I have burned some rather large burn piles on the farm. Usually I let them dry out for about a year, then wait until after a decent rain to light it off. Pour on about a gallon of used crankcase oil/new diesel mix in the middle from the top and light it off. Once interior is burning it will dry out the outside. Like those above I generally only stay closeby until the majority of small stuff has burned off and it is down to hot coals around the more solid pieces.

Interesting, no matter how hot the fire, area will be grassing over quickly and can disappear in about a year.

I've burned a lot which would have made good firewood. However, around here the only way you can give firewood away is to cut it to size, split, deliver and stack it. Then, if they are nice, they won't also ask you to haul out the ashes.

 

This is how you are supposed to build a burnpile :rotfl:

http://www.gofish.com/player.gfp?gfid=30-1012071

 

THATS what I'm afraid the woods will look like if I'm not really careful!

 

Oh, what I wouldn't give to have a burn pile!....<longing look in eye> I have brush and thorns and more brush and more thorns in piles all over the place just waiting for enough rain for them to lift the burning ban. I keep having to move these piles because I need that spot for something.. I have to move another one soon to sow more oats for green manure...

You might contact your fire Dept. Around here the chief has the power to issue a permit to burn during the ban. Depending on how far from other stuff your piles are, it might be easy to get.

 

In my part of the northeast, there's no coal, and little peat, so those posts were something of a revelation. I do burn brush piles, especially what comes out of the orchard; trimmings, leaves, drops not suitable for table. No critters right now to clean those up. Summer is dry enough, though not like where you western types are, and lots of grass fields near us, so I seldom burn in summer or early autumn. Winter is best. There's less stuff to catch and spread, and I can shovel snow in if it gets out of hand. lol For folks with a real concern about burning waste, or wasting any resource, you could consider getting a sturdy gas-run chipper. If the thing is portable enough or you have a flatbed trailer, there's probably a side business in that in some areas. Sue

 

If you all insist on burning wood residue rather than chipping and composting..... at least be sure to spread the ashes around your grapes, onions, garlic, legumes and lightly over your larger fields and orchards.
Lot of potassium and trace minerals in them ashes....

 

Chipper~
I looked at those and I can't afford one large enough to take care of the big pieces~ Some of what I need to get rid of are whole trees that have fallen down! We've cut them into smaller peices~ but most of the chippers I could consider purchasing say 2" branches maximum.......ummmm.....I don't think even the smallest peices are THAT small.

If I rent a chipper~ can I rent one big enough to take care of this stuff do you think? And how efficient are they? If I rented one for a weekend would I be able to work my way through three or four tree's worth?