Wheat Harvest: FIRE!

“I think my combine is on fire” yelled the radio. I looked out across the field that I was combining and that quick there were two machines coming straight at me full tilt around the outside edge and a third cutting right through the middle of the field (leaving a rather hairy pass as he was driving too fast to cut the wheat clean). If you want to see action, imagine 8 combines all screaming across the field and then the operators grabbing their fire extinguishers and running to the burning combine. Its like kids running to free candy. I took the cue and followed suite, not knowing exactly what to do I took the advice of the old adage “when in Rome do as the Romans”. So I too hurried to the combine in question and hastened to it with the first of my 2 pyro-suppressors. By the time I arrived they had put it out, “it” being the orange glow and a lot of smoke. So I re-mounted my fire extinguisher and went back to harvesting wheat while the boss assessed the damage. The verdict: a bearing got too hot. I apologize for the lack of fine photographs of this event, but taking pictures is not top priority when a quarter-million dollar machine is being threatened by fire.

This picture, however, does show what could happen if a fire goes unchecked. Not only could it consume the combine and surrounding equipment, but possibly thousands of dollars of crop still in the field. All farmers have a “fire truck”. This is usually a 4 wheel drive vehicle with a water tank, pump, hoses, shovels and other things used for fighting fire. If someone has something burning everyone drops what they are doing to go and help. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

And for those of you wondering, Sarah still acounts for the majority of my phone time, as little as it may seem.

-CWTSYA-