![]() ![]() Even silage that is too dry likely is too wet to burn quickly."Ī fire inside a stack of silage inside a silo does not have adequate air to burn aggressively, so a farmer should not panic. First, farmers should realise that silage does not make a good fuel source. "The initial decisions made can mean the difference between salvaging a viable crop or ruining it. "A silo fire is usually discovered when someone sees smoke coming from the top of the silo or the smell of something burning is evident," he said. That is a critical time when natural fermentation and heating is taking place inside the silo. The earlier a fire is detected, the easier it is to control, Mr Hill noted, so it is important to regularly monitor silos for a month after harvest. This is not an easy task but not an impossible one." "Better to lose a few tons than a few hundred tons. "The goal in managing a fire inside a silo is locating the fire area and controlling that area without affecting the rest of the material," said David Hill, director of the Managing Agricultural Emergencies Program. When a silo burns, a farm operator can lose a tremendous investment of time and money and can face a huge cost to replace ruined feed, but many silo fires can be managed and the damage and loss minimised, according to an agricultural-emergencies expert in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. Sometimes, when harvest conditions are less than ideal, silage with lower-than-optimum moisture levels is put into a silo, potentially leading to excessive heating and a spontaneous-combustion fire. ![]()
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