End of the road for a JD 7720 combine

[245dlc]

Today I went to go visit my inlaws with my wife. The men were busy threshing Canola so I went and sat in the cab with my father inlaw and told him about our holidays I noticed a couple times a smell in the cab like a slipping belt drive so he decided to empty the hopper and bring it back to the farm so he could blow out the chaff and dust and find out what's wrong. Well just as he turned the corner in the road he said the cab got really smokey so he stopped everything and got out and the cab just filled right up. I was already at the house and looked to the road to see if he was coming and saw that it was on fire, we both called the Fire Department as I figured it was going to take a lot of water to put it out and wanted to get across that they would need probably a couple tankers. The Fire Chief (who is an idiot and not well liked in the community) showed up in his personal vehicle right away and I told him he was going to probably need a tanker and some foam as there was a lot of chaff due to how dry the Canola was. He told me it wouldn't take much to put it out well after waiting probably close to half an hour and the fire got bigger and bigger the pumper showed up as well on mutual aid assistance a second pumper and full crew showed up. The Chief in all his wisdom or lack there of, sent the other pumper and crew back (apparently because he doesn't like them) while his skeleton crew used their little pumper with a 500 U.S. gallon tank to try and put out the flames. In the end he called a local farmer who had a tank on his farm truck to come and fill up his pumper as he quickly ran out of water. lol The combine is a complete write off but the header is salvageable and the straw chopper. A big wrecker came and dragged the now separated header and combine back to the farm so it wouldn't be a hazard on the road while some of the chaff and other crap kept smoldering. I tried putting some of it out with a couple pail fulls of water, but maybe tomorrow I'll bring my gasoline pump and give it a proper watering from the dugout on the farm as it really stinks.

[Muz]

Jeeze ... so you're saying they could maybe have saved it if theyd turned up with the right kit ? ... good job it didnt happen in the field .. would that stuff have caught fire ? .. I see its a bit like rape seed ? .... this happened to a truck I was in once, an old Volvo, when a field of barley was being combined .. some straw had got sucked up and blown onto the turbo, which eventualy caught light and set the field ablaze

[245dlc]

Yeah the field could of caught fire I think Canola is also known as rapeseed. I think even if they had shown up sooner it would still be a write off but at least they could of kept the tires from bursting and make it easier to tow.