SCUT cutting Fire Breaks, Best Tools?

[Artisan]

Not being savvy, yet, to flail mowers and tillers I have a question(s).

Bonus points if you are a Fireman or VERY well versed in Wildland FireFighting.

I have a BX25, a small pit bull, manuverable and nimble and will
go all day long on a tank of fuel+ . I can hang any implement or combination
of said on my tractor. My tracotr is a BX25 ONLY, no other tractor, just
a BX25 in this scenario.

If I wanted to cut a professional fire line / break what would be the best
accessory / implement, front and rear would you want? Would a flail unit
at the rear and a toothbar on the FEL to pop out shrubs be wise or would a
tiller and toothbar be better or another combo or what would YOU
want to have at your disposal helping you or your men to make a fire
break/line quickly and efficently saving mens backs.

Of coarse no major hill traversing w/ a BX25, lets say it is fairly easy going and
a mixture of grass, shrubs etc need to be knocked down.

In this scenario it is NOT out of the question to have a crew with me
w/ shovels, Mcleods, Pulaskis etc. What would those boys LOVE
to have knocking stuff down in front of them? REMEMBER, your tractor
is a Kubota BX25, no substitutions. :thumbsup:

 

[bcp]

How many bonus points for being ex-vol. rural firefighter AND a BX owner?

Dirt is better than low grass, so I wouldn't consider any mower.

On the bucket I'd use a Ratchet Rake or Pirahna toothbar, not the conventional digging-style toothbar.

On the rear I would try an offset disc before buying anything powered and much more expensive.

Subject to change for your conditions, of course.

Bruce

 

[CBW1999]

I second the ratchet rake for the front, maybe a small box blade with ripper teeth for the back to clean up as you go. Based on some of the pictures I've seen, the Ratchet rake will do the majority of the work.

 

[swick1]

There's a website for a guy in California who does professional tractor work and he uses a disc to make firebreaks. I'd get the url for you but I cant remember it.

I'd probably have a grapple on the front and a disc in the rear. Disc the soil then hit it with a landscape rake or grader blade.

 

[imgone52]

I like the disk idea too. It would be more forgiving of tree or shrub roots that were left behind by the ratchet rake.

 

[JoeinTX]

A 4ft tandem disc will be the best pure firebreak making tool you can get for your little tractor. After reading your other post "BX25 Goodies" in this section and seeing as how that's apparently what you already have. A little BX like yours may not handle a 5' as I originally posted. As stated above, nothing beats tilled ground for depriving a fire of fuel. It's good to take a shredder over the area first to pulverize what plant material there is, but, what's even better is to then disc it and turn up fresh soil. Make as many passes as you need to plow it to your liking. Make it as wide as you want......one swath, two swathes, or even more.

I looked at pure fireline plows years ago for small tractors but they are very expensive........try about 7 times the price of the average disc. They are still made but you pay a premium for them and they aren't as "multipurpose" as the ol' tandem disc plow.

Many years ago while visiting Cali' I noticed the county (I think the county, maybe the state?) discing many vacant lots and open areas in suburban towns to reduce the risk of fire. This was in the Thousand Oaks area.

The average land owner's best fire defense is a rubber tired tractor with a disc plow.

 

[shona13]

G,Day artisan .
The offset scalloped three point disc is by far the best tool for the job ,that is all that is used over here in Western Australia and as said there is nothing as good as the disc plow to slow a fire down ,it is also cheap to repair and easy to use you will be an expert in a day.
Regards
Hutch.

 

[Wyobuckaroo]

I have woods that aren't too thick here, but have a very closed canopy. So there is a lot of light brush etc that clogs the ground.

I use my 5' home made cultivator. It has 17 teeth (3.75" spacing) that are 2" chisel plow teeth. Depending on the mission I can add or remove teeth and change spacing to suit the need. It pulls brush as a ratchet rake would, and I can dig with it 3" to 9" deep depending where the gauge wheels are set. I try to keep a path of loose dirt along my property line next to the woods.

But then I use it for everything from seeding grass, driveway grooming, wildlife food plot, etc. The county road by me gets horrible frost heaves in the spring that will drag on the bottom of my small car. I use the cultivator to groom these areas.

Good luck

 

[leonz]

If you can purchase a disc plow in small enough width that is powered
by the rear power take off that would be faster than a tiller.

BUT saying in saying that the issue is any grass left un covered adding to
the fuel load.

A larger tractor and PTO powered disc plow would be even better as the cut would be even deeper.



Another possibility to consider is a rotary plow.


In one example:


A 13 horse BCS two wheel tractor with a rotary plow will till 14 inches deep in one pass with the wheels
set at their maximum width at the first pass and every pass thereafter


The dual rotary plow will allow you to turn back on the same furrow and go back rather than turn around and
return to the starting point to till the furrow again.


A single moldboard fitted with a Weisse conservation tillage plow share will also plow down 14 inches
with good suck and the big plus is very low drag and it will do this with very lttle effort due to the plows
high trash clearance and very low drag.

Just a few options to illustrate the possible options to you as a pto powered disc plow may cost more than
a new 13 horse BCS two wheel tractor with a dual rotary plow.


EDIT: My aplogies for forgeting this:

1.A four wheel drive Ferrari Orchard And Vineyard Tractor with a front mounted flailmower and a rear mounted tiller would also work well
as it is a very low profile rubber tired utlity tractor that has an articulating steering sytem(swivels in the middle to steer) used simply as an illustration.


2.Another option is the WeedBadger used for tillage in vinyards and orchards as the weed badger would cultivate deep and also
eliminate brush for you too. The Weed badger is a mounted implement that is either side mounted or rear mounted depending on the tractor horsepower.

 

[boggen]

a tiller would be slow moving compared to a disc. that and a tiller would most likely be binding up on tree roots and large bush roots. causing you have to get off tractor and remove the ugly mess stuck up in the tiller.

a disc works, but if you are working hard surface ground. if you can get something to initially break through the hard crust, the disc will do a much better job (depends area to area, even on a few acres it can depend a lot in how deep and hard the first few inches can be)

with folks mentioning rippers or teeth like a box blade has. or a bottom plow / muldboard plow. folks are trying to note, the ability to initially break the initial few inches of hard ground/dirt that is at the surface, but also at same time, the teeth or rippers, need to be strong enough not to break / bend when they hit a root. and be able to pull root out, or cut through root. the deeper the rippers / teeth go into the ground the more HP and traction your tractor will need to have.

if you are a home owner, were you are just installing fire breaks you can maintain, then you would have time, to do major prep work (removing shrubs, roots, etc..) and then after initial prep work for years to come to maintain it, instead of bushing hogging or using a fail to keep grass down, you could just toss disc on, and go over the area a couple times. to keep a dirt path going for a fire line. a cultivator might work as well. perhaps box blade as well.

on other hand if you were a fire fighter. and had limited time before fire reaches the area.... then perhaps a FEL and some sort of rippers / teeth on the lower edge of bucket. (fel so you can have it handy, and get tractor unstuck and move stuff out of the way as needed, perhaps pull bushes up and out of the way as needed. or push tree limbs out of the way) teeth / rippers to help break the inital hard ground) and then some thing on the rear of tractor, like a disc or cultivator or something, that does not dig real deep into the ground, but rather turns and tills the grass / weeds up. so only dirt lays on top afterwards.

a bottom plow or muldboard plow, can sink into the ground and literately turn the ground upside down, but because limited size tractor. you would be required to make multi passes, using 1 to 3 bottom plow.

a cultivator, setup for fields, can be setup to go in between rows of crops. and help remove weeds between rows of crops, but you might be able to setup each teeth/ripper of the cultivator in a smaller pattern. to go into the ground a few inches to get past the roots of the grass / weeds. and turn the ground over. so only a few roots are at the surface when done.

running into large tree roots, any were from 1" or larger can and well most like be a problem. the more teeth or rippers or plows you have. on the implement = more likey bending a teeth or getting stuck and having to reverse, pickup implement and move it to other side of the tree root before dropping implement back down again.

above is only my limited experience here on the farm. dealing with a garden or making dirt paths / use of implements i have owned / do own.

if dealing with tall weeds, and shrubs / bushes. mowing them down could be just adding fuel to the fire. more so the "wind row" or clumb of cut weeds/grass that gets made behind the mower. but if you can find something that just digs down into the dirt, and flops the dirt right over top of the tall weeds. and then cuts the clumps of dirt up some and spreads the dirt out some. like a bottom plow disc combo. you might have something. the more passes you can make with different implements the more likely you could make a better fire line.

have seen fires go across bean fields and corn fields, in early spring here on the farm. were the stalks were cut down within a couple inches of the dirt if that. and hardly anything to burn. but with just enough wind. the fire spread over 10 acres within a few minutes. if that.

 

[CompactTractorFan]

I am a volunteer firefighter and BX owner too. :thumbsup:

I am not really sure what would be the best method...Ratchet Rake maybe??? Why are you asking this? There must be a story behind this thread...

 

[mooseracing]

Dirt is the only firebreak, and nothing with compost type material (like a swamp).


Depending on the wind (it can be real light) it doesn't matter on the break. We had ashes over about a 100yds with a calm wind when the neighbors yard burned and we were putting it out. If I was paranoid or worried I would be setup with a trash pump an big tank.

 

[jenkinsph]

With something the size of a BX I would use a tiller set to run just deep enough to wind up with a little dirt on top. Run it up to top speed and travel forward as fast as you can and still have dirt showing on top. That would be the best results you can get with a small machine.

 

[Artisan]

Certainly a lot to be taken into consideration. I am appreciative of the replys
in detail. I found a Leinbach B245 Disc, a 20-18. It is too big for a BX25 I am
pretty sure, butsomehowever, I look at it and see it is a fairly simple machine
and modifications will not be rocket science, either drop 4 or 8 discs from
the outside of the gains.

The BX25 manual says, under IMPLEMENT LIMITATIONS / Disc Harrow =
300 Lbs & 54" wide.

The Leinbach website says my new (used) B245-20-18 weighs 575
Lbs w/ a max width of 6'-9" so looks like
I am going to be dropping 8 Discs, 2 from each gain and run 4- 3Disc gains.
In essence I am making a B245-12-18 I will start a new thread
called BX25 DiscOrama soon. The weigh, well, I am guessing it will be
a tad over 300 Lbs. That is OK per the IMPLEMENT LIMITATIONS of
the tractor, so long as conditions permit (PG 14 NOTE bottom)

So I am going w/ a 12-18 in the rear to start.

 

[Artisan]

DiscOrama link...

 

[leonz]

If you can purchase a disc plow in small enough width that is powered
by the rear power take off that would be faster than a tiller.

BUT saying in saying that the issue is any grass left un-covered adding to
the fuel load.

A larger tractor and PTO powered disc plow would be even better as the cut would be even deeper.



Another possibility to consider is a rotary plow.


In one example:


A 13 horse BCS two wheel tractor with a rotary plow will till 14 inches deep in one pass with the wheels
set at their maximum width at the first pass and every pass thereafter


The dual rotary plow will allow you to turn back on the same furrow and go back rather than turn around and
return to the starting point to till the furrow again.


A single moldboard fitted with a Weisse conservation tillage plow share will also plow down 14 inches
with good suck and the big plus is very low drag and it will do this with very lttle effort due to the plows
high trash clearance and very low drag.

Just a few options to illustrate the possible options to you as a pto powered disc plow may cost more than
a new 13 horse BCS two wheel tractor with a dual rotary plow.


EDIT: My aplogies for forgeting this:

1.A four wheel drive Ferrari Orchard And Vineyard Tractor with a front mounted flailmower and a rear mounted tiller would also work well
as it is a very low profile rubber tired utlity tractor that has an articulating steering sytem(swivels in the middle to steer) used simply as an illustration.


2.Another option is the WeedBadger used for tillage in vinyards and orchards as the weed badger would cultivate deep and also
eliminate brush for you too. The Weed badger is a mounted implement that is either side mounted or rear mounted depending on the tractor horsepower.

Adding what I said earlier the issue more of a brush fire
consuming the available fuel and jumping the firebreak
itself which does happen I.E. jumping across roads.


The fastest way to solve the problem is with a
very small dozer like a JD 450 size class with
a 6 way blade and a scarifier attachment on
the rear of the dozer.

This would allow you to employ a heavy tiller
afterwards in several passes as the ground
has already been fractured and damaged.

The scarifier would destroy any remaining
roots and the tiller would destroy any vegetation
every time you use it as the scrub would be gone.


A heavy tiller is not slow moving when it is set
at a shallow depth setting-4 inches for example
as the scrub would have already been removed
from the firebreak.

A landscape rake or a small hydraulic powered
stone picker could be used to level and remove
the rocks.

Removing the rocks after the tiller works would
make the repeated passes easier as the tiller
would be used at a shallow depth.

The more the area is tilled and or mowed the
less fuel load is available for a brush fire to consume.

 

[leonz]

With regard to your toothed disc and your tractor:

Adding a set of ag tires and tims will be tremendous advantage
for adhesion and traction.

It would be simpler for you to increase the Angle Of Attack
of the front and rear disc sets which allows a more aggressive
cutting action for the toothed disc set.

The one thing you need is to have the tires loaded if they are
not loaded already as this will increase your tractive effort and adhesion
with the fill set of discs and the disc will not be too much weight for the tractor.

If you start removing discs and disc arbors/bearing you will have problems
greasing the remaining discs due to fine dirt accumulating on the exposed ends.


You have a ground engaging implement and obtaining maximum traction and
adhesion is what you are concerned with and good tires and ballasted tires
will be huge help.

 

[case245]

if i were me i would use the fel with reg digging teeth after a few passes with fel then use a disk harr then after a few passes with disc use fel to remove the dirt and make sure ground is 110% bare dirt we used to burn the field off ever spring the methed worked ever time

 

[jenkinsph]

Besides tilling the surface a good addition would be to use a pinestraw rake to clean the surface of any left over debris that could burn. I would rake it in the direction of the impending fire. The cleaner the area you are trying to save the better as in less combustible material as fuel for the fire.

 

[mcald62]

I'm a career fire officer in a rust belt city,all structural firefighting.However when I was many years younger I did some serious brush fire fighting.I gotta go with the Ratchet Rake on the FEL.Pound for pound ,$ 4 $,the best attachment out there for removing brush quickly to to bare ground. I have also owned a small excavating company.Thats my 2 cents.