It's 61F with rain. Has rained most of the afternoon, but only .7" so far. Could be some heavier stuff tonight.
Drew, the best way to fight a grass fire is with a wet pine top. I cut at least two and put them on opposite sides of the brushpile in five gallon buckets of water. I also burn a ring of grass out to about 10-12 feet. With a hot fire, it is hard to keep the grass nearby wet enough not to burn. Taking the fuel away is the safest thing.
thanks Larro, that's a really good idea. Fire needs fuel heat and air. Take any one away and out it goes. On an interior fire, a nice fog pattern on the nozzle will take the heat down real quickly, converting it into steam which exhausts outside the unfortunate home. Assuming the firemen got the doors open and the ventilators in place fast enough. On a field fire, oh those old stainless Indian tanks did get heavy. Sometimes the little line of fire just seemed to go faster than you could walk, particularly after a couple hours of it. We had a historical steam train ride in my home town, which used to constantly light off brush and fields along the tracks it went on its hour long ride. Serious hassle during August and several times the local fire companies got the train company to run their diesel until we got some rain. The sparks flying out of that thing were a fireman's nightmare.
wet pine tops. Got to get me some of those. Now I did have a big flat snow shovel out too. That's a "Northern" trick and I doubt you have one of those in your garage. But a coal shovel is next best. I was all set to get on the Kubota and drag the bucket over the advancing line of fire if my buddy was not able to catch the front line in time but he did just fine. We had only fair water pressure so our twenty feet of "field fire" had to be terminated in a hurry. we had already wet the area but not enough. Then it got drenched, repeatedly. About four times I'd say. Every time I went back there I watered it again a little further out. Leaving that unattended at night near the woods and my barn would have been impossible without that nice three block high fire pit. Plus the wind forecast had to be light and it was.
Ron, have a great drive, safe and smooth.
