Burning Wood at Night.

[ning]

When we first moved here we had a guy with a small dozer & full sized backhoe clear a road and a platform for a barn and turn-around, and ended up with a really big pile of brush and trees in our meadow. The pile was about 10' high, 30x40'; he told us we could burn it. I called the local FD, and they sent a guy out and he looked around and gave the OK.

I rented a trash pump, set up a fire nozzle and had our 1/4 acre pond ready as a water source... and then reconsidered the pile. I spent a day and a have pulling 1/3 of it off further into the meadow away from the trees, and we burned that. Good thing, too, because the flames from that pile burning were long enough that had the other pile been burning, flames from there would've licked the trees and we'd be living somewhere else now.

I spent the next 2 days pulling brush out of the bigger pile that was not on fire, and tossing them onto the smaller burning pile (which was often too hot to get anywhere near); camped out by it during the night. Finally got sick of babysitting it and ran water on the coals pile for a couple hours nonstop and still got steam bursts.

These days I make small piles all year long then when it's burning season (for piles, not the rest of the woods - as in, it's seriously wet enough) I carry them to my burning spot in the middle of the yard and light them up with the propane weed torch (400k BTU - it'll light anything pretty quickly). We're supposed to limit our piles to 4'x4', but you can't get a clean burn of such a small pile... mine are typically about 6-7' in diameter and other than a brief cloud when it first lights (or when I toss on another pile with the forks), there's little to see in the air from my burns. I don't hide what I'm doing, either - that burn spot is in direct view of the country road by the place, but nobody's ever complained. Probably helps that there's a tractor near the pile these days (and my wellhouse).

 

[hslogger]

Until about seven or eight years ago, I burned all of the orchard trimmings, fence line clearing, anything organic that I could burn.I enjoyed sitting around the fires and keeping them tight and clean burning to the end..... for a couple, few days afterwards. I always considered it a waste and finally bought a Woodmaxx chipper. I make piles, stacks that are pointed in one direction and chip them when I get around to it, or pack it all to a spot where my super chip pile is. I do have a small burn pile now an then of chunks or crap that isn't fit for the chipper. For me, chipping the stuff and getting something out of it is better than just burning it all up, and I don't have to go out in the middle of the night "just to be sure".

 

[dragoneggs]

I burn a couple times a year... spring and fall. I cover the pile over winter. Burn ban stops the action in the summer. Leaves... absolutely not. Perfect compost. But sticks, stumps, other wood stuff and even old pallets... respects given!

 

[Diggin It]

I burn once or twice, almost always in Winter when the ground is moist and no leaves on any trees. Grass around is cut short. I wait until Fall to trim branches after the leaves have dropped. My piles are always small, maybe 10' in diameter and 3-4' high.

Tried the weed burner thing. Wouldn't light my stuff even after it was down for a few weeks. Tried some left over road flares. No good, burned nice and bright red, but didn't ignite the pile. Tried small piles of cardboard, sometimes that would work but not always. Tried diesel ... sometimes 3 or 4 gallons. That can get expensive. Rake up a few leaves and shove them under. Light it up, leaves would burn fast, but not spread to the pile. Cut Cedar boughs and stuffed them under wherever I could. The boughs would light up and burn intense .... but not spread to the main piles. Tried the leaf blower. Would make a nice cherry red bed of coals, but wouldn't spread to the main pile. Tried shoving the piles around, using the FEL bucket to press down on the loose stuff. That might get it going, but then risk the tractor. Didn't want to see what would happen if a hydraulic line popped, spewing oil and losing power to move.

Sometimes it would take more than one of those tricks over a few days to eventually get it going without much worry that it would spread.

Once going good, they would burn hot and fast, so very little smoke to be seen from any distance. After they were down to ash and reduced in size to not much more than a small campfire, I'd call it a day.

 

[TractorGuy]

Round here a permit is required for any pile over 8ft in diameter. Must light after 9 am and be totally out before dusk.

I gave up trying to comply and keep my piles below the size requiring a permit. Doesn't change the rules but so far they haven't bothered to come put one out on me.

 

[deereman75]

Up here basically any burning is fair game as long as it's not a tire pile.... Brush piles, cattails out of sloughs/ditches, fields, old buildings, you name it. Just have to call into the fire department first so that they know not to show up.

Usual process for bush is pile it all, burn fall or winter, and whatever doesn't burn bury in the spring. All the stumps and big logs and such. It seems to be the best balance of cost vs effort

 

[Frankenkubota]

here in central NC they burn at nite quite often. when i did my prescribed burn i asked the forestry guy....why at nite?

basically.....less hassle from the general public....he said........at nite, they can't see the smoke.

 

[ning]

here in central NC they burn at nite quite often. when i did my prescribed burn i asked the forestry guy....why at nite?

basically.....less hassle from the general public....he said........at nite, they can't see the smoke.

We're told here not to burn beyond evening because the smoke dispersal gets lousy - there's often a light breeze during the day which disappears in the evening (though it reverses or comes back with nightfall typically).

If I've got a lot to burn I usually keep feeding the fire until just before dinnertime, but I typically break the rules and burn more than a 4x4' pile because I can't maintain a smoke-free fire that small unless it's seriously dry stuff, but as a result, I don't emit much smoke to bother the neighbors (50-100y away from my pile, but if you're making massive smoke signals that are moving along the ground it'll p*ss people off quickly) and nobody's ever called me on my fires.
Personally I don't rely on "smoke dispersion", I prefer "smoke-free" which pretty much means burn dry, or enough dry that it's hot enough to mix what little water vapor is emitted into a lot of hot air (I guess that's smoke dispersion, though the authorities are usually counting on a breeze to deal with all the leaf-burners' smoke).

 

[deereman75]

This is today's pile. Probably 30x90 by 16' high. Cut a fire break around it, kept the disc on standby. Half an hour between second and third pics, just lit with a torch at one end.

 

[BackRoad]

^^^^ Now, that's a tractor!!!