Farmer Sense
Fire Prevention w/Chief John Bruce
- Hello everyone, welcome to the Farmer Sends podcast. I'm your host Rick Willard. - And Rick, are you doing this? - Andrew, how are you doing, Andrew? - Good, how are you, Rick? - I'm doing good. - I'm just enjoying some Mike and Ike's here after lunch and I'm enjoying the whole lot of them. - Yeah, good. - Yeah. - I took a break this afternoon. I'm doing a little work and we're doing this now. So yeah, good to see you. - Good to see you. - So, okay, so I asked you before sure, according to Matt, how the planer was going, you said you were doing that, you were working on your drone, so. - Yeah, the drone trailer, I was taking a part 'cause I have to use the trailer tomorrow, so, and I was done with the drone, so I was cleaning that up and winterizing it and taking all the platform off and tanks and pumping all that. Then my neighbor lady got a load of gravel for her driveway from the county, but I didn't know the county actually came out with their skid loader and leveled it too, so I was gonna do that, but then they were already doing it. - Super nice of them. - Yeah, no comment. And then, yeah, we got on the subject of stuff changing, or beans getting, well, we're dry here. We did have a Scotia rain this morning, but most of it was north of us. But it's dry, some of the hilltops in areas or bean fields are looking like they're ready to harvest, except for all the green spots, of course, and I was just telling Andrew that I ordered some Gramoxone 'cause I was gonna desiccate 200 acres of beans because I wanted to not have to harvest zero on my hilltops and 20%. - Zero, really, zero. - The moisture would probably be. No, but I wanted to kind of just get the field evened out, and both of those farms have weed issues on the headlands 'cause I think I talked about that earlier this year that planting deeper, you know, I planted at two and three quarter inch depth for my beans and that's fine out in the field, but then when you turn around on the end rows, those beans don't come up. So there's a lot of thin spots from turning around from the wheel tracks from the planter and the tractor. So a lot of weed escapes, and especially when I'm only planting 105,000 to begin with, and you know, or a compaction issue where the truck's sat next to the driveway, a lot of beans of, or excuse me, weeds have been poking up there, but I got to take out my invisible line. I forgot to do that. - Oh, click click. - So then you'll be combined in 10 days, right? - No, so I just ordered the product. I probably won't get it. Hopefully I get tomorrow or Monday. I didn't put a rush on it. They'd probably bring it whenever. And, but next week, probably, I need to get that planner done, which I should be able to get done this weekend. I got all the, well, if you follow me on TikTok, I haven't updated the last one yet that I did yesterday, but I did get all the brackets mounted. I had to modify them. So I have that Thrive 3D system on there. And they have their own little sensor and hose hook up. So what I ended up doing was using one of the bolt holes that that was mounted on to mount this other bracket. But in order to do so, I changed where the Thrive bracket wasn't actually welded it on to the precision bracket and kind of made my own thing. And then I had to cut a little bit off the bottom of them with my plasma cutter to allow for a bigger bolt on the parallel arms. So I'll update that on TikTok with some pictures and stuff, but it turned out good. Just had to get them modified a little bit, did a little tiny welding. I needed a little bit of cutting and then some spray painting and got them all on there. So what have you been doing? - I swear, all I do is try to run and try to get stuff done. Been working on mowing, making stuff look nice. I met with my banker this morning. I've been doing the financial advisor stuff. This is the time of year that a lot of that stuff's due or not due, but I do it before harvest. So we kind of get it taken care of. I got a few more of those to do. And then, I don't know, waiting on the combine to be honest. - Yep, it should have broke down on delivery. So that was entertaining or whatever. So it's there now, but I drove up there to look at it the one day and it still wasn't there. So I'll super productive on that stuff. I'm real deep into this spreadsheet that I'm building for grain shrink and dock for methanol plant and how that works. And so I'm kind of in the middle of that here. - I should have just set your mind. - Then send it to me. - Oh, okay, it's on my phone. I made it one day a few years ago. Yeah, you just enter in your yield and your average moisture and boom, it'll show you what, is that what you're looking for? Shrinking. You have no mic, your lips are moving, but you have no sound. - Well, 'cause John is trying to call me and I'm like trying to answer all of that. - Okay, yeah, you know, positive. Well, we'll just introduce our guests. Hey, we'll add them into the stage. - Well, I can hear you, John. I was trying not to talk to him, but on the phone. So- - I don't think he can hear you though. - He can hear you. So anyway, let's just keep going with it. - Yep, we're back. We got Johnathan, Leslie Bruce, Fire Chief in Red Oak, Iowa, on the podcast. He does help me in the fall, so I will harass him more than normal. So Rick is mad at me 'cause I paused it when we were having our technical difficulties. So good afternoon, Johnathan. - Yes, good afternoon, gentlemen. - That's Chief John Bruce. Nice to have you with us. - Yes. - The man with two first names. (laughing) - Well, Johnathan doesn't get to help me with farming, so he knows a little bit about what we're gonna talk about today. - Yeah, I met him at the Farm Progress Show last week. We had a good time. It was hot as balls, but it was fun. - It was a good time. - For sure. - Was that the one that you said, Rick? It was like, what, I dick. - No, I think that was you. - That was me. Yeah, that's right. - That part would make sense, isn't it? - Yeah, that's right. - We wanted Johnathan here to talk about fall fire safety. Kind of the safety you got in your shop, as far as what extinguishers, what you should have on your combine or your tractor, what do people have, you know, should you have a, I've been told you should have a water fire extinguisher versus, you know, a normal one, 'cause then they kind of just blow the embers out and make it worse, I've heard all sorts of things. So we're gonna talk about it all. - Nice. - And we can start with whatever you wanna talk about, but let's start with, let's start with like a shop or shed scenario, as far as, you know, I don't have any fire extinguisher in my shop, and I know that's bad. - Yeah. - You know, we got certain ones, you know, for electric. I kind of learned this in school, I think, during fire safety week, like you supposed to use certain ones for different scenarios, but yeah, is that the thing still, or do they just have one fire extinguisher for everything now? - Well, your ABC is gonna cover probably just about everything you need when it comes to being shop related. You know, you're gonna get into your case for cooking oil, stuff like that, but an ABC is you're all around, all encompassing. There's plenty of them out there that you can get. You know, when we're talking fire and the rule setting, it's important if it can be done safely to where that initial extinguishment can take place. And that's just because a lot of times you're dealing with volunteer departments. So there's no staff right there at the department. You're waiting for people to come in and respond, drive time to get to you. So that early on suppression really does play a factor. If it can be done safely, of course, we don't want somebody hurt, but you were talking about the extinguishers in the shop or suppression for there 'cause obviously with welding maintenance, you know, just the housekeeping for the structures within themselves to keep the fire load minimal, but it's a working machine shed or a shop. So you're gonna have all those oils and gases and so forth. So having some way of being able to initially suppress the fire is paramount while hopefully somebody's able to also get 9-1-1 called right away. But having a few extinguishers is never gonna hurt you. We've actually, a lot of our departments around here have gone to the banjo fittings because of our spray operations and so forth that have water on their trailers. They actually can come in and help supply water to the fire departments. And so there's a lot of them that, like you say, are throwing water tanks in the auxiliary pickup or whatnot just to have that on scene to start the initial suppression if they do have an issue with a piece of equipment or a field fire, you know, a bearing wears out and you start getting debris put down in the field or whatnot. - Yeah, important to have that initial, if you can. - Yeah, do you have a recommendation on like so many fire extinguishers per square feet? I'm sure there's a code for it. I'm not asking for the code, but just a good reference. - They want them no farther than 70 feet apart from each other. And it's not code, but it's kind of a general practice to have them by a exit/entry door because where's the access point for people to go? If you put it in the dead center of the machine shop or whatnot, somebody's got a traverse to it. Something's going to get parked in front of it. Something's going to block it. You got to imagine if there is a fire occurring the smoke, you don't want to get into a smoke inhalation problem. So if you have that extinguisher close to that walk in door or walk out door, gives you the opportunity to access it or anyone can access it and then get right to it. So you're never going to be yelled at for not having enough in there. And the more rule that you are or the dynamics of the fire department or fire departments and maybe responding to you would also play a role as to how much of that suppression you really want on-site, so. - Speak, can I go over one more time before we leave the shop stuff? - Yeah, I know myself included. Do you recommend people putting carbon monoxide detectors in these shops? - Sure, absolutely. - Is that something that needs to maybe be a more of a focus for people? What do you think? - Yeah, you've seen codes change to where they're pushing for that in your residential and your apartment complexes and whatnot and it's the same threat that could occur inside that structure as well. So, absolutely. - Yeah, my question was going to be along the shop and shed line as well. So placards, like if you have a shed that has only chemical in it, let's say it's your chem and seed shed or something, should you have a placard outside? Should you just know that when, I mean, 'cause you might not be there if there's a fire and the fire department could show up and just go running in or I'm sure you have a little more training than that, but you kind of want to know what's out there in there before you go in, right? - Absolutely. - Is that, I'm guessing it might not be a law, but it's probably a good idea for a farmer to do that? - Correct, yeah. When you're outside the commercial network, there's not near as much regulation 'cause it's private, but absolutely knowing what you have on site. So that the fire departments arriving know what they're dealing with. It's no different than dealing with factories. You know, as the chemicals change, the seasons change, what you're applying, what you're using, not using changes, it's nice for those folks to know what they're dealing with, especially, you know, how's it gonna interact with water? 'Cause that's what they're probably gonna be trying to use to put the fire out. Is it a chemical that's gonna jump on top of the water and ride it? And all of a sudden, we've got a really big issue. Is there an explosion problem? Smoke inhalation issues, you know, for human impact or environmental impacts. So the more information that's there for the first responders to digest, the safer everybody is. And yeah, most certainly would help a lot. - Yeah, now like on most commercial sites, you guys, you know, the fire department will come to a walkthrough every so often, correct? - Yeah, to kind of learn where everything is. So would it be handy just to have something posted right inside the door or on the door? What's, well, yeah. - Yeah, or a note on the door that your chemical data sheet information is inside, kind of like a, you see the fire extinguisher inside, stickers you see on some work trucks and whatnot, alerting your fire department as to where it's at. A lot of us in the rules setting down here in Southwest Iowa, everybody's got each other's phone numbers, you know, we're very rural, very tight-knit. So you could call up whoever, you probably know somebody on the department or the chief and be like, "Hey, just so you know, "here's what we got at the farm, "here's where it's gonna be located." And then they can pass that information on. Also where we're at here, the communications center can actually go in and put notes on an address. And then they can list that. So if the fire department or law enforcement's called to that site, they've got those notes. So the dispatcher can actually tell the responding units, "Hey, there's a chemical data sheet or book "or whatnot located in such, such locations." So like I said, every little bit's gonna help and help keep everybody safe. So it all helps out. - Awesome, okay. So last year I had a bearing fire on a combine. I got out, checked it and sure enough, knew what it was, was close to home. Like I got, I'm gonna drop the, well I didn't drop the head, just drove it down the road, went and fixed it. And then all of a sudden I get a phone call from my neighbor lady. She's like, "There's some smoke coming out of your field." And I was like, "Oh shit." Well I thought I had it put out. Yeah, I saw the embers fall down. And of course it was a windy day. Like it is, seems like it is all the time in Iowa, but yeah, blowing out of the south and like, "Oh great, now the whole field's gonna be on fire." Well thank God, it stayed. It was only about the size of two pickups, but we used every fire extinguisher we had, and which reminds me I still haven't had them refilled. But I just, what I didn't like is every time I went to use it, it'd blow out and all of a sudden there'd be embers going, it kept spreading the fire. So then finally we added under control, we did, but I still called the fire department 'cause I was like, "I need them to come out with some water." Because sure enough, we're gonna leave again or in the middle of the night, and it did. It took off in the middle of the night again. I had to get up, we saw it, it just kept following one row all the way down the field. And I got that put out again too, but the fire department, or I can't remember who it was if it was a chief or who, but they said sometimes having those water canisters are a little better 'cause they don't blow it out all over. Do you agree with that? Just for, okay. - Yeah, and you can maintain those yourself. You can take the top off, refill it with water, pressurize it with your own compressor system, and then you're ready to go. So there's not much of an expense to have to have it shipped off, or if you use the dry chemical, of course, then you gotta get somebody that can professionally come in, put chemical or whatnot. And on the other side, like you say, the pressurization's not there. So the water suppression will go in and knock it down versus the chemical where it's using the propellant to really put that out and kind of fan the area, which is detrimental sometimes in that. Another tool that we use down here is we have thermal imaging cameras, and our EMA has a drone that we actually deploy on larger fires, but we will check the area for hotspots just because like that, you don't wanna have to come back or if Mother Nature decides to kick up the wind and six hours later, now we've got a massive field fire or whatnot, so yeah. And some folks are always a little lenient to call 911, they think they're balling, remember whatnot, but that's what they're there for. And having the fire department come out on something like that that you had, they're gonna soak the entire area, and then you walk away knowing you're pretty well in a good spot, so. - Yeah, yeah, it was good. Of course, I made an uproar, we had a few people calling one and no, you know, 'cause they're listening to their scanners, oh, what's going on in your road? Well, it's fine, no wonder control. And you know, but we just wanted to make sure that it didn't start up again, so. - Yeah, yeah, what is one thing? So, I mean, I know the answer to this one, but if you do have a field fire, what is some basic information like, if you have hired workers or whatever, that they need to know when they call 911, like doing a GPS location, what's the best way or just know your roads? - Know on your roads, know the address, know where you're at. Not everybody's gonna know that that used to be where the barn was at, that the three-legged pig grew up. Not everybody's gonna know that. You know, everything now should have a numerical address, your roads, because with the cell phone technology, you know, I help Andrew out, of course, and we've got ground all over the place, you don't know which 911 dispatcher is gonna pick it up. They could go to another county, you could go to the state patrol. So if I call and I say, you know, I'm at the Skay Hill Farm on Highway 71, but my cell phone call went to the state patrol, they're gonna be like, oh, great, where the hell is that at? We don't know where that's at. - I don't even know what county it might be at. - You know, yeah, so with the technology, you don't know where the cell phone's gonna go. And it's not uncommon in our neck of the woods, a dispatch center will pick up a call from a neighboring county just because of how the technology works. So they need to know address, where they're at, and basically what's going on, you know, explain we got a field fire. We have a tractor on fire. We recently encountered some stuff in California where they've had some heavier equipment. They lost a firefighter because the rear tire detonated and ended up killing one of the firefighters on scene. So there's a bunch of new safety protocols being pushed out. But some of the machinery in the agricultural areas, we just seen up in Boone at the farm progress. There's some massive stuff out there. So the more information that can be relayed to the dispatchers, so the fire department knows the better they can respond to it. And, you know, Montgomery County has a three tiered fire department response on all fires. So there's three departments assigned. Not everybody does it that way. So they may know they need to call mutual aid right away as well. So the more information they can get and where are you, especially when you get some of these fields that connect, but maybe they connect on a waterway on the backside and you need to describe that. So the fire department knows how to get into you. - Yep, perfect. And the other thing is, you know, what kind of crop is it that's burning? What outbuildings are near or any other things? - Yeah. - Is it standing corn, you know, being stubble, is it equipment involved? - Yeah. - Any exposures, any structures nearby? - It's probably a good idea to take your machinery and try to drive over the top of it and put it out, right? - Yeah. (laughing) - All right, I'm gonna say that I have seen that work. (laughing) - I do not recommend that people. That was a 100% joke. - I don't recommend it, but I've seen it work. All right, so about five, six, seven years ago, Columbine Fire appeared north of my house and they ran over the fire in the corn stalks with the auger wagons. The three auger wagons just kept making pass and pass right next to the fire and it just brought up enough dirt that it ended up putting itself out. - Okay. - So you can do it. - I wouldn't recommend it, call the fire department, but sorry. - So we'll continue on with... - Yeah, if you have a piece of tillage equipment out in that same field, which we do have farmers that follow each other very closely, you know, as far as if they're not spreading fertilizer. Yeah, I mean, get in between your standing crop and the fire, right? Or a neighbor's crop or whatever with that piece of a tillage equipment. 'Cause we've had to run out to a neighbor and help out. And you see that on TikTok a lot with videos and stuff out in the wheat harvest. Everybody's running around through discs, but I wouldn't recommend going into the fire. I've seen some of that too, and that's kind of crazy. I mean, you could get smoke inhalation pretty quick even in a tractor cab. - Or if your piece of equipment decides to stop running and you're in the middle of that, you're in a bad spot real quick. So we actually run a call list in Montgomery County. We have a lot of farmers that call into the Sheriff's office at our Montgomery County Emergency Management. And we actually have them located throughout the county, tractors and discs. And they are notified by the dispatch center when we have a rural fire. And these folks deploy right away. So kind of a small little task force, if you will, but it's, you know, we've got, we have numerous years and every year, we've encountered a fire large enough that if it hadn't been for the farmers coming in with their tractors and discs, we would have lost it. We had a very large fire, about 750 acres lost on the west part of the county. And the saving grace was we had farmers from Montgomery Mills, Pop County. They were able to get north and put, I think there was three or four tractors of discs and just ran them side by side to make a fire break. And then that's what eventually put the fire out. But it had burned from highway 34 over by Emerson, all the way up into Pop County. So, and it was literally going faster through the fields than we could get the grass trucks maneuvered around it. 'Cause it was one of those nice, lovely, windy days, like Mother Nature throws at us. And it was during harvest, so everything was dried out. And you know, when the fire trucks are trying to get through, they're trying to take roads and sections and slowing down, but a saving grace. But yeah, they can get in there and get that fire break made, absolutely. - Yeah, and it's going to be dry this year, especially in North Central Iowa. I told Andrew and the opening there that we had like, I don't know, half a tenth this morning or something, but there was an inch north of us. But I know you guys have been kind of dry too, and they're talking mid-west like no rain for the next week. So, yeah, it gets to be that time of year and being on the department with John. You know, it can be three, four calls in a single day, just from field fires that it was not intentional by any way. I mean, like a bearing goes out or last year, it was a brand new corn hand or something that had a bearing issue or what it, doesn't matter how old the equipment is, it can always start a fire easily. - Yep, but stat, I don't know, in dryer conditions, do you think there's some static electricity issues? Maybe more so on bean side than on the corn side? - It's definitely an issue that we know is relevant. You know, with the, we've heard the stories of it occurring. Of course, like both of you have said, it's always been so dry that just any little thing seems to be able to just get them sparked up and ramped up and going. 'Cause you'll have the mechanical side of it, but we've also had, you know, a brush pile that was burned three weeks ago. Well, that stuff will stay hot for weeks and weeks and weeks. And once Mother Nature gets in there and works it with the wind, it gets those embers, you know, blowing through the air. That's one that people forget about, you know, especially with these, if they're not burying the brush piles or whatnot, that we have encountered. I believe the one that was over by you, Andrew was over a month. - Yeah, it had been out for over a month. And the wind picked up just right and then it ended up burning by 40 acres. - Yup, yup. - There hadn't been any smoke for a month in the middle of the winter, but yeah. Crazy, just crazy. - Oh, shit, no, I forgot what I was gonna say. - Thank goodness it was in the winter, though. They didn't have a bunch of standing crop or something. - Right. What was I gonna add? Go ahead, Rick, do you have a question or not? - No, you don't have one, you know, as you said. (laughing) - I was gonna go for something. - Go for it, please. - So, I know what it is now, so. - Okay, go ahead. So, all right, so let's talk about semis, right? And trucks going in and out of the field. So, like, I've expressed my concern to you, John, since you helped me in the fall, is this newer semis that we have this year has the exhaust that shoots straight down. - Oh, crap. - We gotta be worried about what carbon coming out there or is it, make sure we don't regen in the field? - Yup, yup. - And stuff like that. - Yeah, or you're getting any of the husks or anything, you know, down around it, that it's gonna get something sparked and going. That's... Yeah, well, then, you know, going into the fields, what could encounter the truck and do damage to any of that or bend it or whatnot, you know? It's... - Yeah, I didn't know if you've seen any field fires caused by like a regen. We, not off of a regen. We've had UTVs with the corn stalks wrapped up around exhausts and whatnot that have started a few fires. With the regen, no. I do know that on our bigger fire trucks here at Red Oak, periodically we do have to regen them and it has to be outside. And if you're just there, when that truck's going through that process, oh, man, there's no way I would want that in a field. No way. I mean, it's going to, you know, thousand, whatever, degrees and that pipe is red hot and it's running high idle. And then if you were to have a mechanical failure or whatnot, you know, what's coming out of the exhaust pipe and onto the ground. So, yeah, definitely that's something that we would have to keep a good eye on. Or, you know, I don't know, it's adding another step to it, but having kind of a pre-prepped area where the dirt is turned a little bit more if you're going to have that kind of equipment to where you know you don't have that much of a fire load right there where those trucks are at, not much for it to burn around. Maybe that's feasible. Maybe it's not. Everybody's territory is so different. Equipment that you have on site is so different. But, you know, if you had a dirt spot versus going right into the field that's just been picked, makes a difference too, I guess, that definitely would be something you'd want to keep an eye on, that's for sure. - Got some big old stacks on her, Andrew. - Yeah, I don't know. We'll see how, if we catch it on fire, we'll do something, I guess, I don't know. I don't think we will, but, you know, for not being around, you know, I haven't had to do a regen on a truck before this one. And after doing it once this summer, I'm like, this would be an absolute, terrible thing to happen in the field if you didn't know what was gonna happen. - Yeah, you're talking these trucks, some of them, when they've done a regen, like if they'll specifically tell you don't do it on asphalt, they're burning holes through asphalt lots. These things can get so hot. So, it's a unique thing. If you never watched one do it, you won't do it. - Never seen one, never been around one, never had a truck that had to. So yeah, this is all news to me. I knew they got up to like 1,200 degrees, but never actually been around one. - Yeah, I did it on the rock and, you know, there's some grass coming up in that one, right? - Melted your rock? - No, but it turned green grass black. - Yeah. - Like it's burnt it. And I'm like, that's-- - How long? - So, it takes 10, so, and now does it just tell you on the dash, like you need to regen soon. So you don't, it doesn't just start and do it automatically. You have to like make it so you can go home, get in a safe spot and do a regen. That's how it works. - Yes, okay. - Yep, yep. I'm still learning that, to be honest with you, but it did come up and say you need to do a regen. And then I did one. So, I did it on gravel. There you go, see how that's done. - And it melts gravel, wow. - It does not melt gravel. - Oh, so close, so close. - Okay, lava rock now. - Yeah. - Yeah, well, once we get done with harvest, everybody seems to want to clean up stuff. And you talked about brush piles. What about burning ZRP and ditches and stuff like that? - Yeah, most departments offer that as a service. It most certainly could be done for maintenance and whatnot, but it's another thing that if you're unfamiliar with how to do it, they can get away from you really, really quick. The fire departments will come out. They'll have the tools, the training, generally the knowledge to burn those off. Plus, if they have newer folks, it's a good training tool to train the newer firefighters to how wild land fires occur and kind of fire behavior. So it's a two-fold advantage for the fire department to come out and do it. Most of them don't charge. It's a donation thing to the department if you want to. But I know we've used them for donations, but we've also used it, like I said, for the training. I don't know. And you guys would know better. Are they kind of going away from the CRP funding or for what they used to in the past, I think, is what I've heard? - Yes and no. I mean, they'll send something out every few years saying you have to disk it or you have to burn it or you have to mow it or whatever. But you have all those options. You don't have to burn it. But it seems to be kind of a popular thing to do. But yeah, a lot of times, I like to keep mine just that one, we have a 12-foot bad wing. I like to just keep that 12-foot around it, always short, so it's always green. And that way, if I do ever have to burn, you know, it doesn't, that's kind of the fire break. And I know a lot of these pollinator plots have been set up that way with like 20-foot breaks around them that are supposed to be, you know, mode, they're just normal, like, rye grass or whatever grass. And then the rest of it's the big prairie grass and stuff. But what is the proper? This kind of does have to do with safety. But, you know, you talk to a lot of old boys or young boys or whatever that burn their ditches. You know, but like the old guys, they always say, "Oh, you want, you know, you show his back burn," or whatever, and then have some water with you, whatever, in case something gets away. But is it smarter to burn with the wind and have it just go hoof up in flames or should you burn against it so it burns back slower and does a better job? - And it's a lot easier to control. - Okay, yes. - Especially if you start getting a lot of ash and it starts to leapfrog on you, not knowing what terrain you're in. - Okay. - You know, that wind gets in there. It'll start to generate its own wind, too, once it gets big enough. So yeah, if you can keep it slow and suppressed, a back burn and having those fire breaks like you talked about before. So in case the wind changes or whatnot, you got a little safety built in there that hopefully we'll get it wowed or stopped for you. So yeah. - Okay. - Yeah, it's farmer's house. There you go. When it goes across your fire break, that'll make you pucker up more than faster than anything in your entire life. I had one go across the fire break last fall, but I got it out myself. And then I got lucky, but I was like, oh shit, I'm gonna have to call the fire department, even though I'm on the fire department. - You wouldn't, I mean, they wouldn't have made fun of you or anything. - Well, there wouldn't have been any pictures and any shit talked to them. - Oh, no, first time? - First time, yeah, first time, first time. All right, so the other thing, do you have anything else on safety, you know, as far as fall, harvest side? We'll talk about Green Van Rescue, I think next, but. - No, I think just having a communication capability if you do need to notify 911 for whatever, no one where you're at. If you've got a first aid kit or a tourniquet kit right there with you, because a lot of times I'm just thinking you're in a very isolated remote area and you're probably relying on these services. They're gonna have to make quite a little drive to get to you. And then just if you have those water cans, fire extinguisher, just something that you can get the initial suppression knockdown occurred before the fire department gets there, every little part, you know, helps out, so. - I didn't know we were doing Green Van Safety, so I added it to the ticker on the bottom. - Oh, well, I think when we first talked about it, we talked about it, my fault, my fault. - So do you wanna talk about how the Van Rescue system kind of came around our area anyway and how you use it and trainings? - Yeah, we, well, some of our insurance carriers actually, I believe brought the program into the neck of the woods where they were providing these kids to the area of fire departments. And then they brought the training in with it and then we partnered with our local co-ops to actually go and do the live exercise drills of doing the bin rescue setup and then extrications of victims. We've had some situations, you know, locally knock on wood. The only thing we've had here in our county was actually a corn pile that he got down into and we had to deploy the rescue, the Green Van Rescue equipment out there to get him out, but he was only about waste deep, thankfully, at the time when they showed up. So we didn't have to worry about airway being compromised or whatnot, but it's, it's definitely something that is out there in a given moment. You know, I'm just kind of thinking about what we've got around with your farm, Andrew, and just the, you know, a sole person up checking something, whatnot, you know. And then a mishap occurs, but yeah, come in through, boy, I hate to say a name and then not be right and then be crucified. - I wouldn't worry about saying it. I wouldn't even say it, but I know, you know, we got it donated to our department and get other departments. So how does it kind of work? - Yeah, so, yeah, there's multiple pieces that have to be placed together. So you got somebody in the green. The rescue technicians are gonna have access to them. They're gonna build kind of a little platform. So milk crates or whatnot. So they're not sinking into the grain. They're gonna put that down. They're gonna put these big walls, integrated wall system together and they're gonna put that around the victim. And then we're gonna work on getting the corn out. So between the victim and let's say the inside of that wall, we're gonna get that corn out. You can either use, there's a drill system that extricates it or the victim, if they're able to, can actually bucket the corn to get it low enough to where then we can extricate the victim up and out of it. That's, you know, typically going in through the top access in some fashion and that would be for a rescue. Now, if you're getting into a recovery, that could be a totally different dynamic to, you know, is that gonna have to be where the grain bins can have to be compromised on the side where your triangle cuts come in to get that grain offloaded to get to them. There's a curtain, you know, there's some factors to it. But somebody that's there that we can get to, that's kind of the system. There'll be a lot of ropes, that type of equipment, but that's how we'll go right in, get that set up and then get them extricated. - Can I go back to the victim that was in that pile? He was up to his waist, you said. And just questioning this and never having been around it. So he was buried to his waist. You would think, you know, a person listening to this that's never experienced it would say, well, you know, especially being in a pile, like couldn't he just kind of pull himself out with his arms or whatever. So what was the instance? Was he actually stuck? Was he just fearful and he thought, well, if I keep moving, I'm gonna keep going down. I mean, what is the instance there with that? - Yeah, he had ventured out onto the ground pile for whatever reason. And once he went in, I don't know if he was, if he'd found himself on some crust, you know, there was something there solid enough that he made it up the side of the pile of ways. But when he went in, it's like quicksand. So the more you wrestle it, the more it's actually gonna start pulling you down in. It's a very unique feeling. We go through it on the fire department because we all take, you know, when we do grain bin rescue, you take turns being the victim. So we actually get submerged in that grain. And when you do, you realize, that's like quick creep. I mean, it's just, it's heavy. You're not gonna move except going down in. It seems like the more you move, the more it just pulls you down. So he had gotten to that point before one of the other workers had noticed where he was at and then we went in and got him extricated. We didn't have to do the full circle with the panels. We just did an upper part. So there wasn't a landslide of grain onto him and then we got him dug out. But once you're in it, it's like quicksand. And it's not, I mean, the pressure is just massive and it won't let you move. - Yeah. And, you know, like myself, I've only been up to my knees or whatever, cleaning a bin out. You know, I never had to worry about that issue. But yeah, that's why I was just kind of wondering and I wouldn't want to be in that position. Especially if you were alone, gosh, you know, yeah, you definitely want to stop right away, especially if you felt it keep pulling you down. So I totally understand now. Okay. - What's amazing is like what John was saying with the training part of it, we just do it like in a grain trailer and we just open up the bottom and let it suck you down. Like, so I had shorts on that one year and I got way steep. I think you could see the kernels in my skin for like four hours later. - Yeah. - And it's amazing how much pressure there is. And just that, you know, that sinking feeling when you're in there and they open that trap and you go down a little bit and you're like, oh, and then you go to move and there's nothing. You're just in concrete, it feels like. Yeah. - Yeah, I remember like in FFA 30 years ago or whatever, it's been, but you know, they'd have a simulation. I don't know what you had to pull on, but you know, you couldn't pull anything that they were always talking about if somebody got in it and you were on the top of the bin and tried pulling them, it'd be impossible. And yeah, I can see why for sure. - Well, so talking about grain bin rescue and what about flashover? You had an instance last year at a local facility that had a little flashover incident. You want to talk about drain dust and... - Yeah, it's very explosive. And when it goes, it goes, it's gonna do some damage. It's gonna take, you know, it could injure people, kill people. We, this one was in a large confinement and it blew panels completely off the shed and off the conveyor system completely just, they were gondy. We heard it at the fire station. We, at the time we thought maybe there'd been a car wreck or something, I mean, it just, it just jolted and you could definitely hear it. And this was on a newly built facility. This wasn't even on the older part of this particular. This was on the new part. But the dynamics were just right. They had a mechanical failure with their system, overloaded it. And they had the right amount of dust and the right friction and the spark and it went boom. And thank God they didn't have anybody who was in a lower tunnel system. Thank God nobody was in it or that they'd been in a bad, bad shape. So, but very dangerous. So just maintaining, you know, the good housekeeping for a lot of these places. So, so is it a pile that it has to be or does it have to be a pile that all of a sudden the wind blows it and it turns into, you know, almost like an ash that will ignite it. I mean, how does it explain how the grain dust? Yeah, it's the fine particulates but it's the how it gets itself to an ignition source and then it gets that combustibility. And usually because it's grain dust, there's so much of it that when you get that flash, it converts to that combustible layering or whatnot. You know, there's so much of it that's out there that that's where you get that big, big boom. I like gasoline, you know, the more you pour on it, if you get it right away, you get that big old puff with it. That's similar to kind of what the grain does. So I've been able to say I haven't played with gasoline. I know a guy that can put out a fire with diesel. Yeah, I've seen it too. But when you talked about with that last year, you said it blew some panels off and those weren't like small panels, if I remember right. Aren't they like pretty thick metal? Yeah, they had to bring a front end loader in to actually move the lid back over the opening. This is a concrete six, eight inch thick concrete lid that goes over it and it moved and it moved these steel doors and the concrete part of it. So that tells you, you know, of course it's confined to a tunneling system. So that, you know, that adds to the pressurization. But Holly Moses, could you imagine if somebody was in there? They went and made it sadly. And this is a new building too. This isn't something that's been around for years. This was a newer construction. So I think everybody was a little taken back that we had that kind of a situation, but you got to keep your head on a swivel. You never know what you could get into. So. Right. What about grain bin fires with, you know, do you encounter a lot of that in the fall, especially if it's a bin dryer? Any issues there or what to look out for? We've only had only one that I can think of where it was actually the, it was inside the grain bin. And those, you know, if it's inside the grain bin, you got to get the grain out. They have different suppressions. They've got the little nozzles where you can cut a small hole in the grain bins, stick a nozzle in and try to float it with water that way or offloading the product and getting it out that way. Of course you're talking what size bin, what do you got in there? So far knock on wood, we've been pretty fortunate with that. Now with the dryer side, yeah, we have more fires with the external dryers, just usually it's a maintenance issue, whatnot. But since they're on the outside of it, we've had, you know, we've had pretty good luck without having major losses with those. Our biggest one was with one of our co-ops in our neck of the woods was the biggest dryer fire that we've had, otherwise, most of the time, they're not that large on the private farms. So we've been pretty fortunate, I would say. - Okay. What about just like our co-ops had the elevator, elevator to use the fire department come out and spray off the dryer, the tower dryers. I mean, is that a good thing? I mean, obviously you want to clean them off so you have more airflow and everything too. But is that also a fire prevention method or is that just helping out the co-ops so they got more airflow for the dryer system? - I would say that's probably helping them out, keeping that cleaned out and going and probably not having to worry about paying some corporate price to have somebody come in and do it. Actually with the new co-op that we have around here, we get their tier two information all the departments that have a facility get their tier two reports. So we know all the chemicals, fuels that they have on site. And then we also periodically do walk-throughs of the facilities, just so we kind of learn where everything's at, the in hydro stations, fuel stations, you know, where's the rail system? We have grain cars and chemical cars come through with ours. So it all helps and makes everybody familiar with what you got going on in your neck of the woods. - What do you do in the case of a, we didn't talk in hydroes. What do you do in case of an in hydroes like a valve bus or blows off or whatever? I mean, I'm guessing you guys are the ones that get called with that. What's the protocol there? - Yeah, so do we have a nurse tank? Do we have a large tank? What are we dealing with? 'Cause we can, we respond in, if it's something we can get into, of course we can pack up, put our SCBA's on, if we need to, go in. We can try to shut the valve off. Usually we have co-op staff that respond pretty quick and they kind of get in and just take over and take care of it for the most part. If it's something larger than that and we have to do either an evacuation or a shelter in place order, like our new co-op here in town is right, right on the edge of town, it's all integrated in. So if we had an issue with the large tank that's out there, we would have to do a shelter in place 'cause an evacuation area for that site, for their big tank out there, you're probably looking at about a mile, almost impossible for us to get a town evacuated like that. So we'd do a shelter in place and then we can send them in, us in, most of the time let's co-op folks, or they deal with it all the time. So most of ours are just a nurse tank bleeding off, gets heated up over pressurized, bleeds out a little bit. Of course, it's an ammonia, so somebody smells it and then they start calling in, but. - Yep, yep, a wreck with an anhydrous tank, we've seen that before. - Yep, yep, yep, that's never a good one either. So, let's see, we wanna talk, let's see, we talked about clearing trees and stuff like that, brush piles, pipelines, right? That's a hot topic in our area, but pipeline safety, I know that you attend pipeline safety meetings, look for placards, what else do you have for farmers out there to make sure they're paying attention? - Well, you know, for those with pipelines, underground utilities, you know, we've got, we've got that throughout our county, you may have some spots within your area that - Is that safety nap calling? - Huh, is that your safety nap calling? - Yeah, yeah, that's fine. That's when my second lunch is ready, might as well beat you to it. - Thank you. - If you had natural gas lines coming through, do you have any of that real estate that's above ground in your farm field? Most of that stuff is fenced off or deep enough. With the carbon pipeline, they're talking about through our neck of the woods, there's controversy as to how deep it's gonna be, and will it be impacted with farm equipment, livestock, what's the fire department responses and all that? That's a big topic right now in our neck of the woods. Windmills have been discussed. You know, what if they were to ever catch on fire or whatnot? You're probably gonna get some good Facebook photos. I mean, there's not a whole lot you're gonna do for suppression, you're gonna watch it. - You might need more pressure to reach it, 200 foot water tower. - Yeah, yeah, even the new area is not gonna reach, not gonna reach that. - Well, and you don't wanna be within 200 feet anyway, I've seen those colors go flying. - Yeah. So it's, you know, as far as having it in our area, you know, we've got the pipelines, but you also gotta think of what's on the highways that's being trucked through here, what's on the rail that's being brought through. We've got plenty of stuff, you know, what goes overhead in the air, there's always gonna be that threat out there, but a lot of it for the rule setting would be you're probably gonna notice in your cornfield if you've got a dead patch of corn beans. Well, if it happens to be over where you know there's a line that goes through there, so many needs to be on the horn pretty quick. We did have a situation, I think it's an eight inch feed east of town, and that's how they found it was the pasture. There was about a 12 by 12 dead spot, and they got ahold of the utility company, they come out and when they probed it, it was one that needed to have issues right away. Thankfully it was in the rule setting, so we didn't have houses or anything close, but you know, you see something doesn't seem right, just get on the horn and give a holler. - Yeah, I have an experience with pipelines. We have natural gas pipeline go through one of our farms, and it also has a man-made ditch through it, and we purchased the farm, and from the first day, we could see this big four inch natural gas pipeline sticking out about 18 inches above the bottom of this ditch, and never thought a single thing of it, and of course then we had a neighbor who wanted to check because one of his tile lines outlets went to that ditch, so of course we let him check his outlet, and then he notices the pipe. So then it became one heck of a deal, you know, we gotta get this covered up, this is a hazard, you know, in here. For like three years, we didn't say a single thing, 'cause they're like, it's not hurting anybody, there's no problem, so then they ended up coming, and they put one of those mats in that they pumped the concrete into, and it looks like a big bubbles. They put that in, well, what does that do? Well, it raises our ditch two feet, or three feet, or four feet, or whatever, so now we can't get rid of the water from all of our tile outlets like we can. So it's like, don't let neighbors check their outlets, okay? I'm not saying this wasn't this safety thing. I'm sure a big old stone came rolling down through there and hit it, but I mean, we knew it was there, we didn't do anything about it, and it was fine, but now it's kind of an issue, but it can happen so that what I'm getting back to is the depth of a pipeline is important, especially if you have man-made waterways or whatever that run through a farm or just road ditches, 'cause really that's what this is. It's a road ditch, it's the same depth, but it just goes, cuts through our farm. But yeah, so yes, depth of pipelines can be an issue. - Yeah, awesome. - Do you have any other questions, Rick? I don't, I mean, John, anything else you wanna talk about for fall or not? - I think we've hit on a lot of good subject matter here for what we can get out there. Just doing your pre-checks on equipment and going through if you do some of the preventative measures or like a water can on some of your equipment or whatnot, just it's easy, it's quick, it's pretty inconvenient to have in an inconvenient time if something occurs, but like we touched on earlier, your rule settings, your response times, your departments you're relying on to get to you, there could be a gap in that timing, so just trying to keep that narrow down, keep the fire from getting large, keep everybody safe, we want everybody okay. It's a lot of equipment moving around, a lot of moving parts and get everybody home, that's the moral of the story, so. - One more quick question, so I have these empty fire extinguishers, I wanna get them recharged, refilled, whatever, and there is a place in Mason City, I think that does that, so do you, and this is probably why it hasn't been done, 'cause I don't really know what to do, so do I just take my extinguisher there and then you swap it out, or do I have to sit there and wait, or do I have to go back and pick it up in a week, or do you-- - Well, there could be a downtime, but they will have to put a chemical in it and then repressurize it and sign off on it, so yeah, you just take 'em in and then they'll take care of it, but it'd probably take 'em a couple days, I would assume. - Okay, and then what about the steel water canisters, and would they have them for purchase, or is it something that I can just find on Amazon? I mean, I don't wanna take business from the locals or anything, but where do you get the water canisters for sure? - We've got a local fire extinguisher company here, so he's the one that provides all that to everybody, so we know we're getting everything that's signed off, not some aftermarket that could potentially cause a risk, but the nice thing with the water cans, once you get it, you take care of it yourself, 'cause you're literally just putting water in it, pressurize it with your air hose, and then you're good to go, so very little maintenance fee with those, and but your local fire extinguisher companies can get you set up, so at least you know you're getting something legit, and I just, you get online and start shopping around a little bit, and you start getting some of these places, I don't know, we know what we're getting for sure, so. - Okay, and then that brings up another good question. I think it is, I always have good questions. The cold weather part then, so you have all these water canisters, do you just have to keep it in a warm cab? I mean, if you're gonna leave it in your tractor, or even over the middle of the night, it could freeze up or whatever, is there something you can put in that isn't going to hurt the fire, that'll keep it from freezing? - Antifreeze. - Okay, regular antifreeze would be fine. - It would be freezing. - Okay, that's, I was like, well, I don't want to put antifreeze it, and all of a sudden, you know, that's flammable, and here I got another fire, but so just regular old antifreeze would work, okay. - Yeah, just enough, keep some from freezing up, yep. - Okay. - Like I said, that's a nice thing with them, they're pretty maintenance-free, and easy that you can do yourself, so you don't have too much of an expense in cured, so. - Yeah, awesome. Okay, no, I don't have any more questions. I think this was great. - Yeah, thank you, thank you, John, for taking time, and I appreciate it, you know. - So do I. - Yeah, well, I get to deal with him all fall, and he has to deal with me all fall, how about that? I don't know. - Yeah, yeah, shocker, shocker, Rick, could he tell you what truck that he's gonna have me drive? - Yeah, the grass burner. - Yeah, the fire starter, the lava rocks. - Yeah, exactly. - Yeah, so I can see how that radio article would go. - Yeah, I don't know where it was. - The fire chief starts fire with truck. - Yeah, it burns off 9,000 acres in South West Iowa. - Yeah, I hope not, but. - No, I appreciate your time. You're really resourceful when it comes to this stuff, and I know that you and I have talked, there's some new technology out there for spraying, like pre-harvest on your combine to put the fire up, but we need to learn a little more about it before we probably talk about it, I guess, is what. But thank you for your time. - Yeah, absolutely. And you know, like we were talking about with having that call list for the farmers with the tractors and discs, if that's something that's viable in your neck of the woods, they have saved our tail multiple times, and we couldn't do it without them. So if that's something that is possible in your neck of the woods for somebody listening in, the fire department's really do appreciate it, and it is a saving grace, so. - Yeah, reach out to your probably county EMA person. - Yep, I would. - Yep. - Well, I even have the, I keep the 110 gallon tank in the back of my side-by-side all the time, you know, for spraying fence lines and stuff, I'll probably fill that up. And now knowing that the antifreeze is fine, I can leave it in there, and if, you know, I got an issue, I can buzz that out because most of the farms are close to home anyway, or if you help a neighbor, whatever, so. - Real try. - Yep. - All right, well, thank you very much, and you want to hand it, Rick? - Yeah, we're going to end it. Thanks, Keith, Bruce. - Thank you, everybody have a safe harvest out there. - Take care, and yes, be safe with Andrew. He's emergency waiting to happen, so. - That's true. I was curious what term you were going to follow up with there, so. I should have pre-planned it. I couldn't think of anything quick at all. - All right, thank you. - Yeah, thank you guys.