Burned her to the Ground

[Bobus2003]

Few weeks back had a 10 acre fire in the southern Hills caused by Logging Equipment. Well heard he lost his Timbco 445EXL Feller in the deal.. Saw it Today after they dropped it off at the scrap yard.. Not much left.. They pulled the Drive motors, Tracks and Head.. But i have never seen things melted like i saw on this machine.

[Coon]

That looks like a new unit.  ;)  Newly burnt that is.  :D   Man that has got to suck to lose such an expensive piece of equipment.  Hope he had some kind of insurance policy.  That would be a pretty big hit to take in a good economy let alone a bad one.  :(

[DRB]

can not imagine anyting being usable after that hot of a fire.  Time to melt it down and start over.

[Bobus2003]

After seeing the remains of the machine.. gives me a whole new outlook at keeping my machine clean.

[Maineloggerkid]

wow...that really sucks :-\ Thats a big investment gone right there

[Autocar]

Alot of those fires start when the operator shuts the machine down and after they leave the hot hyd. fluid exspands and will bust a hose and spraying hyd. oil  and she starts fire. To bad for sure , Bill

[Bobus2003]

Alot of those fires start when the operator shuts the machine down and after they leave the hot hyd. fluid exspands and will bust a hose and spraying hyd. oil  and she starts fire. To bad for sure , Bill

My boss requires us to stick around the job for 30 minutes after we shut-down the Timbco/Skidder or Delimber for the day just so someones around if that does happen..

This machine was being run when the fire happened, I was told it was still holding a tree in the head when the Fire Department arrived

[Jamie_C]

Alot of those fires start when the operator shuts the machine down and after they leave the hot hyd. fluid exspands and will bust a hose and spraying hyd. oil  and she starts fire. To bad for sure , Bill

I would say that if your hydraulic fluid is running hot enough to build enough pressure to blow 5000psi hoses when the machine is shut down then you have some other major heating problems going on. Hydraulics running that hot should be cooking every seal and packing on the machine and have fluid pouring out of it everywhere.

[treefarmer87]

unhooking your + battery cable after your done for the day can help out alot. keeping debris out of the pans helps also, fellers are prone to fire because of all the falling debris. thats a shame, those are nice machines. 

[Bobus2003]

I have only seen a few Equipment fires in logging equipment.. One was caused from welding on the machine, another was an hyd oil leak spraying on the exhaust manifold, and a few months back the 518 at work caught fire from a dragging Parking brake (2 sodas, bottle of water and a fire ext. put that out) Havent heard what the figure caused this to burn yet.

[twobears]

i,ve seen that happen to a timco and a morbark whole tree chipper.. i hope i never see another one.the timco was from welding and the chipper blow a hose down underneath it.if there running like the chipper was and a hose blows the oil sprays out in a fine mist and the chipper is a loss in a couple minutes.we used 6 big fire extinguishers on it and five guys including me throw sand on the chipper until we had the fire out at times the flames where all of 30 feet high and we where on a powerline right of way right under a 750,000 kv powerline.
the box that controls the motor melted and the motor ran wild and only guit when the fuel line burned in half and the motor ran out of fuel.

[dancan]

30 feet high and we where on a powerline right of way right under a 750,000 kv powerline.
the box that controls the motor melted and the motor ran wild and only guit when the fuel line burned in half and the motor ran out of fuel.

That would be a heart pumper for sure !