Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Exploding tires alert neighbor about fire

An fire in a hay baling machine resulted in a field being burned

The accident happened on Aug. 17 at a hay farm in Moon Valley on Stephenson Road by Curtis.

T.J. Smith, 64, of Gurdon, was baling hay alone for his brother-in-law, Hollis Thaxston. He looked up and noticed a hay bale on fire that he had just dropped from the machine.

"I really was not alone. The good Lord was with me. I was in short britches and a tee-shirt and did not get a scratch or a burn," he said.

Smith said the incident happened when he dumped out a bale at the end of a row. He looked up and saw fire in that hay.

"Then I looked at the baler and saw blue smoke coming from behind it. I dumped all of the hay out I had in the baler and then pulled away from it," he said.

"Then I started trying to put out the fire, but was constantly having to pull the tractor up to get away from the flames. When I realized I was going to lose the baler, I started concentrating on trying to save the tractor."

Smith said he did save the tractor. He crossed an area that was burning to a spot that had already burned.

"With the slight breeze that was blowing, I was able to get the flames away from the tractor," he said. "Within 20 minutes, the Curtis Fire Department was there. I think there were seven or eight of them out there fighting the fire."

Smith said the first person on the scene was Diane McKin, of Moon Valley. She heard the tires on the baler explode, came across the field to investigate and called the fire department on her cell phone.

"I saw Ed Whitson with the fire department leading the firefighters out there shortly," Smith said. "By the time they got there, that hay baler was just smoldering ruble and the rubber on its tires were melted to the rims."

Smith said they drove the tractor out of the field and started putting out the fire on hay bales and the field itself. Smith said, in the end, five acres of field and seven bales of hay had burned.

"I did not have a cell phone and I would like to thank Diane for calling the fire department," Smith said. "If they had not gotten there in time, the flames could have crossed the ditch and possibly caught a house on fire."

As to the cause of the fire, Smith said he was not sure. He said a bearing in the bailer probably froze up and got too hot.

The farm where the bailer caught fire is approximately four miles from Gurdon.

Smith said his brother-in-law has ordered another bailer and he will continue his work.

"I do this every year and I will not let this accident stop me from continuing," he said. "This whole incident happened very quickly. The tires blew out on the baler and alerted others within five minutes of the time I realized there was a problem. Within 15 minutes, I would say the John Deere baler was a total loss. You might be able to salvage a few parts, but that is about it."

Smith said the hay bales themselves took about two hours each to burn down to the ground.