Barn Fires: Avoid Hay Bale Combustion

Experienced agricultural producers in the southern Great Plains know that low wind speeds, high humidity, moist hay, and hot temperatures can be a recipe for disaster. Under such a set of circumstances, tightly stacked hay bales have been known to combust. Without proper preventative measures, hay barns or any other structures close to the blazing bales potentially might be lost.
Share
Favorite
Close

No account yet? Register

ADVERTISEMENT

Experienced agricultural producers in the southern Great Plains know that low wind speeds, high humidity, moist hay, and hot temperatures can be a recipe for disaster.

Under such a set of circumstances, tightly stacked hay bales have been known to combust. Without proper preventive measures, hay barns or any other structures close to the blazing bales potentially might be lost.

"When you go in and immediately harvest these forages, they have a high water content, which continues the process of respiration," said Daren Redfearn, MS, PhD, Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extension forage specialist.

Respiration is a normal process that plants use to produce food. Unfortunately, it also produces heat. The respiration process will continue to produce heat until the moisture content of the hay drops below 40%. At 20% moisture, the hay is considered dry

Create a free account with TheHorse.com to view this content.

TheHorse.com is home to thousands of free articles about horse health care. In order to access some of our exclusive free content, you must be signed into TheHorse.com.

Start your free account today!

Already have an account?
and continue reading.

Share

Written by:

Related Articles

Stay on top of the most recent Horse Health news with

FREE weekly newsletters from TheHorse.com

Sponsored Content

Weekly Poll

sponsored by:

How much time do you usually spend grooming your horse?
437 votes · 437 answers

Readers’ Most Popular

Sign In

Don’t have an account? Register for a FREE account here.

Need to update your account?

You need to be logged in to fill out this form

Create a free account with TheHorse.com!