Fires in turnout fields

paddy555 said:
just curious as to why? we have bonfires where ever we are hedging or tree trimming. Invariably there are horses around. Neighbouring farmers don't move their livestock. I often ride past a Christmas tree plantation where there are frequent very large bonfires. I can be riding through the smoke across the road. The horses are used to smoke, they just get on grazing. Obviously in this dry spell you wouldn't let a fire get out of control but as a general premise I don't see the problem.
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No one intends to let a fire get out of control, but if that were a reliable plan we wouldn’t need a fire service
 
paddy555 said:
just curious as to why? we have bonfires where ever we are hedging or tree trimming. Invariably there are horses around. Neighbouring farmers don't move their livestock. I often ride past a Christmas tree plantation where there are frequent very large bonfires. I can be riding through the smoke across the road. The horses are used to smoke, they just get on grazing. Obviously in this dry spell you wouldn't let a fire get out of control but as a general premise I don't see the problem.
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It's illegal to allow smoke to drift across a road. There have been serious accidents caused by it.
 
Pearlsasinger said:
It's illegal to allow smoke to drift across a road. There have been serious accidents caused by it.
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Yes, I once suddenly hit smoke on the road. It was actually quite scary to round a corner and be totally unable to see.


On another note, I used to work on a yard where the much heap was constantly burning. It was in the horses field, It was a huge field so they could easily get out the way but the whole herd would always be stood sleeping in trh smoke- Assume flies don't like smoke?! Can't have been any good for their breathing but they all seemed to prefer it!
 
rabatsa said:
We have fires in a field but never when there are animals in the field. We have discovered in the past that the donkeys would stand in piles of glowing embers and burn their hooves given half a chance, so all fires are fully cold before any equine is returned to the field.
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My horses did that and singed the fur off almost up to their fetlocks.
They seemed to like digging in the ash.
The farmer where I kept them at the time was apt to do random things without notice.

I've recently cleared an overgrown field and had a massive bonfire.
The feral sheep always sleep on the ash pile.
 
poiuytrewq said:
Yes, I once suddenly hit smoke on the road. It was actually quite scary to round a corner and be totally unable to see.


On another note, I used to work on a yard where the much heap was constantly burning. It was in the horses field, It was a huge field so they could easily get out the way but the whole herd would always be stood sleeping in trh smoke- Assume flies don't like smoke?! Can't have been any good for their breathing but they all seemed to prefer it!
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Smudge fires (intentionally smoky, often with green material on them) have been used for millennia (we assume) to keep flies away. Drying meat/fish would have been done with one not for the taste but to keep the meat clean.
 
Burnttoast said:
Smudge fires (intentionally smoky, often with green material on them) have been used for millennia (we assume) to keep flies away. Drying meat/fish would have been done with one not for the taste but to keep the meat clean.
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Oh yes I suppose, I’d have known smoking was to add flavour but it obviously started somewhere for a reason! It is of course also a form of preservative.
 
Archangel said:
My horses did that and singed the fur off almost up to their fetlocks.
They seemed to like digging in the ash.
The farmer where I kept them at the time was apt to do random things without notice.

I've recently cleared an overgrown field and had a massive bonfire.
The feral sheep always sleep on the ash pile.
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Years ago the riding school had a Guy Fawkes bonfire with barbecue griddle and some fireworks (a few crackers and sparklers, incredibly mild by current standards), for the kids, well downwind from all stabling.
After the display, they got going with the bbq and some girls went to see the ponies - one stable door wide open and empty - pandemonium - Dandy’s run away, presumed terrified by the bangs, and everyone frantically searching with torches.
Dandy was duly discovered, singed hooves in the embers, nose in the bbq, having broken into a huge bag of bread cakes and decimated the salad.
 
I once noticed some puzzling holes on the surface of some of my horses turnout rugs
and suddenly realised , to my horror , that they had been caused by burning embers falling from a farmers bonfire few fields away. Most were like a spattering of tiny holes but there were a few 5p coin sized , and one large one on the top of the rump about 2 inches wide where the material had obviously melted and , on closer inspection , the wadding inside was singed brown . The horses seemed totally oblivious but it still gives me the heebiejeebies now just thinking about what might have happened .
 
Hazzelnutt said:
I let my husband do it once…. Never again 🙈 he put some wood on that had nails and screws still in it, I spent days crawling the ash for them and using a giant magnet 🙈🙈🙈
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I stopped my husband doing exactly that once. The horses weren't actually in that field at the time and he didn't see the issue. Luckily I saw what he was doing and my reaction...let's say he's never done it again!
 
Exasperated said:
Years ago the riding school had a Guy Fawkes bonfire with barbecue griddle and some fireworks (a few crackers and sparklers, incredibly mild by current standards), for the kids, well downwind from all stabling.
After the display, they got going with the bbq and some girls went to see the ponies - one stable door wide open and empty - pandemonium - Dandy’s run away, presumed terrified by the bangs, and everyone frantically searching with torches.
Dandy was duly discovered, singed hooves in the embers, nose in the bbq, having broken into a huge bag of bread cakes and decimated the salad.
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I once as a kid won a RS gymkhana on a little chestnut Welsh sec a called Dandy. He jumped like a kangaroo and sped around like a little bullet 😁😂 I’d never jumped him before but he was certainly a pony who absolutely loved it - I just had to hang on and steer!
He’d be the type to also raid a BBQ I’m sure 🤣
 
Landcruiser said:
I stopped my husband doing exactly that once. The horses weren't actually in that field at the time and he didn't see the issue. Luckily I saw what he was doing and my reaction...let's say he's never done it again!
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Oh god I've just remembered the time my then share owner's husband - for reasons that will never be clear - set fire to an ancient trailer containing waste wood of all sorts *in her school*. Was unusable for months.
 
Burnttoast said:
Oh god I've just remembered the time my then share owner's husband - for reasons that will never be clear - set fire to an ancient trailer containing waste wood of all sorts *in her school*. Was unusable for months.
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Oh wow 🙈🙈🙈 that would definitely put you in the dog house for a long time 🤣 I imagine he thought it was “safer” than on the field 🙈 oh dear….
 
paddy555 said:
very easy to manage them. Get them their own horse. It focuses their mind when it is their horse who could get nails in it's feet. Mine not only counts every nail and screw if he does anything in the yard he also sweeps it just in case. Many years of training. 🤣 🤣
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Yours is trained in a similar way to mine 🤣

He has a magnet to clear up after anything has been built or repaired.
 
paddy555 said:
very easy to manage them. Get them their own horse. It focuses their mind when it is their horse who could get nails in it's feet. Mine not only counts every nail and screw if he does anything in the yard he also sweeps it just in case. Many years of training. 🤣 🤣
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Mine would divorce me if I bought him a horse 🤣
 
paddy555 said:
the question was about the general consensus of lighting a fire in a horse field. I thought it could be assumed, although perhaps not, that one would have considered the wind direction and making sure nails etc were picked up. Just a matter of common sense.

smoke doesn't engulf the entire field. I have never found that my horses go and stand in the smoke, they just carry on grazing well away.

as for access to the bonfire site then horses seem to like and to choose to stand on recently burnt ground. We have large areas of "swaling" ie controlled burning on Dartmoor. Within a very short time, a very few hours the burnt areas are covered with feral ponies. The ground is still warm.
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We have 12ft pile for burning, its been there since October, because it's either too wet, or the wind is in the wrong direction, and now too dry. Anything screwed or nailed goes to the dump, I am still picking glass up from the builders fire 10yrs ago.
We are already having spontaneous roadside vegetation fires, its coming up to harvest, if you burn someone’s crop you may get sued
 
our worries are not local farmers having bonfires, we had one last week and perfectly safe, but the tourists lighting their barbies in the forests. I don't think they are allowed but that doesn't stop them and also them having fires.
 
paddy555 said:
our worries are not local farmers having bonfires, we had one last week and perfectly safe, but the tourists lighting their barbies in the forests. I don't think they are allowed but that doesn't stop them and also them having fires.
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We have the same problem. In the middle of the Surrey Hills we have countless idiots with disposable BBQs and vapes, cigarettes, even fireworks. There have been a few wildfires in recent years caused by said idiots.
 
Not something I'd do - but one of my horses is absolutely terrified of bonfires. I do know yard who have controlled bonfires near their stables, which doesn't seem to bother their horses.
 
I remember having bonfires in the ponies' field quite regularly in my childhood, and it was fine. It was a large field and the ponies stayed clear while it was in progress, then used to stand in the smoke of the dying embers to keep flies off then roll in the ashes for weeks afterwards! The donkey stood so close once she singed her big fringe.
 
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