Fires in turnout fields

Fransurrey said:
Fires can spread undergound in dry conditions, as well as by burning embers. That's aside from the rolling danger. My old field landlady gave permission for a neighbour to have a bonfire in my field once. I went mental (and that WAS near the shelter/stable and my entire hay stash for the year ahead!).
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How utterly thoughtless and selfish of her!
 
Trot_on said:
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.
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I had one too - went through a fence when the yard lit a bonfire across the track.

Didn't help his nerves when something started exploding on it. Didn't help mine either as I was in the arena on my other horse - had one leaping under me and could see her field mate charging around in panic.
 
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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Actually, I've just remembered something too.

My husband made some announcement about burning some stuff in an old, big 44 gallon drum, and I sort of said, "Yeah..." because I wasn't paying much attention. We were in the house. He went out.

I went out too, because I was planning to chop blackberry. (My hobby.) Ah, but the tools I wanted were in the car. So I went that way.

Hmm... loppers... secateurs... did I want the saw? No, of course not... water? Yes I've got my water bottle... and when I was turning away from the car, I looked East, vaguely, and saw my husband over yonder near all that stuff he'd chopped with his you-beaut invention some months earlier. It had dried out over the summer. It was now winter. (Last winter). And then I realised what he'd been on about.

So I wandered over there because he's a husband.

Anyhow we got burning and it was all quite safe (it's always quite safe, isn't it? until it isn't.) The thing was roaring along. It was nice to stand near. The flames were a delightful colour.

Then, at one point, there was no colour. We were looking at it. I was peering. Husband wantedf to lean over to see if it was burning.

I said, "No, don't do that." And I stared at the air. "It's burning. The air is warped slightly. I think the flames are invisible." (A rare moment of genious.)

And that's when the husband declared that the burn was so clean that it didn't produce smoke. And I think he was right. I also think that he nearly got himself into a dreadful mess, and if I hadn't still had the tools in the car, I would have gone west from the house and not thought about what he was about to do.
 
thefarsideofthefield said:
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 .
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Just looking for where I got up to reading in this thread, and I noticed this post again (which I was thinking of responding to).

During times of (extreme) fire danger here, the horses are not allowed to wear anything on them - rugs, halters, flyveils etc just in case a fire comes along. I'm talking about agisted horses in large paddocks. Just too dangerous having anything that can trap an ember, I suppose.
 
Years ago when very dry our neighbour had several large fires with the smoke engulfing a couple of our fields and the fence had caught on fire. Not clever when it's hot and dry like this.
 
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