By Jeff Holmquist
A quick way of checking haystacks for overheating likely prevented a serious barn fire recently.
A Pennsylvania farmer, concerned about the wet hay stored in his family’s barn, asked for advice from Eric Miller, Miles Township Fire Company assistant fire chief.
Miller in turn contacted Dave Hill, a Penn State University Extension educator known for his expertise in dealing with hay and silo fires. Hill suggested that the farmer drive a steel pipe into his haystacks to see if they were overheating. Sure enough, the pipe was too hot to handle after just 15 minutes.
The fire department, using a thermal imaging camera, then determined that temperatures at the center of the stack topped out at 180 degrees – within the danger zone for a possible case of spontaneous combustion.
Keeping a hose on standby in case of fire, crews removed all of the hay from the barn.
“It was a win-win for everybody,” Miller reports. “They still have their barn, and we didn’t have to spend countless hours fighting a barn fire.”
Rainy fall weather has led many U.S. producers to put damp hay in storage, which is a recipe for disaster, Hill says.
“If you put hay up that is too wet, farmers need to be diligent about … monitoring that storage,” Hill says. “They should make daily trips out to their barns and use their senses to determine if the hay might be getting a little hot.”
A farmer, for example, may feel humidity in a barn, or the hay may not smell right, which could signal bacterial growth in the hay and heating.
A pipe pushed into hay can roughly test its internal temperature. If, after 15-30 minutes, the pipe is too hot to handle, the hay could ignite at any moment.
“You’d better start pulling bales of hay out of there to stop the heating,” Hill says.
For more accurate temperature readings, Hill suggests putting thermometers down hollow pipes pushed into haystacks.
Or they can use infrared thermometers, available at home-improvement stores for $40-50 each.
Hay temperatures of 100-120 degrees are normal, Hill says. If temperatures reach 120-130 degrees, producers should check hay daily.
If they climb to 140 degrees, farmers should consider tearing down stacks and moving bales. Hay bales that reach 150-160 degree should be removed from storage with firefighters on the scene. At 160-180 degrees, hay will likely combust when exposed to air. Barn hay hotter than 200 degrees will probably cause fires.
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