This has actually been more of the issue the past few years with the chute related fires.Īnother less common way for a silo fire to occur is from exposure of the silo to the direct heat of a barn fire. Static produced from the product flowing through the fill pipe can create a static charge that can result in a chute fire if the fill pipe and rings are not properly grounded. Once the fire burns through the doors, the material inside the silo can begin to smolder and burn. Both causes results in dried material in the chute catching on fire and then burning through one or more wooden silo doors. The most common causes of these external heat sources is a fire starting in the chute from either a shorting out electrical wire or from an adjacent barn fire. Likewise, if you know that some of the material you are blowing into the silo is drier than ideal, you might make a mental note of where in the silo that might be placed.Īnother less common way fires can start in a silo is from the outside. This would be the first place to look if a fire does occur. When fresh material is put on this older material, the natural heating that the new material will go through could be too hot at this location. Remember, the dryer the material, the more air that can be trapped in that material. Taking out any one of the ingredients will put out the fire which is the goal of fighting a silo fire.īesides material going into the silo too dry, another common cause of spontaneous combustion is when new silage is put on top of old silage, especially if the old silage has not been removed (fed out for several weeks). This is a good thing to keep in mind when beginning to manage a silo fire. Generally, this is not a reliable source of fuel from a burning standpoint because even material that is too dry for good silage is too wet to burn quickly. The wetter the material, the less air that will be trapped. Obviously, the drier the material, the more air that will be trapped. With proper moisture, the moisture helps keep the heating of the material from getting too hot.įor the air part, air is trapped in the chopped forage during harvest and blowing the material into the silo. ![]() This is naturally occurring and happens with any material being stored. With silage, the heat source is the heat generated by the material going through the fermentation process. In order for anything to burn, you need three ingredients: a heat source air and fuel. Internal combustion of silage material occurs when the silage is put in too dry for the silo. This is a critical time when natural fermentation and heating is taking place inside the silo. The earlier you can detect a fire, the easier it becomes to control so it is important to regularly monitor your silos for a good three weeks post harvest. This is not an easy task but not an impossible one either. Better to lose a few tons than a few hundred tons. ![]() The goal to managing a fire inside this silo has to be in locating the fire area and controlling that area without affecting the rest of the material. Good hay crop silage would be considerably more. If you had to purchase that 400 tons of feed, it would cost you nearly $20,000 ($50 per ton). Let's say you have 20' x 60' silo that has 400 tons of corn silage in it. ![]() When a silo catches on fire, a farm operator can lose a tremendous investment and be faced with an unmanageable cost to replace ruined feed. When this happens, excessive heating can occur which could lead to a spontaneous combustion fire. Sometimes however, harvest conditions are less than ideal, and material is put into the silo drier than it should. If all is well with your silage production and storage, your bottom line will be better off than if you have to purchase feed from an outside source. ![]() This investment is going to enable you to feed your livestock economically into the next year. If all is right, the investment you make in putting the crop in the silo is less than what you would spend if purchasing the crop from someone else. Overall, it is a tremendous investment in time and materials goes into your cropping program. You prepare the land purchase the seed and fertilizer plant the crop manage the pests nurture that crop throughout the season harvest when the crop matures and/or when the weather allows.
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