Page 46 - Moving the Earth_ The Workbook of Excavation

LAND CLEARING AND CONTROLS

1.46 THE WORK

will burn hot and persistently. Plain water has little effect on such a fire unless applied in such
quantities that the area is flooded. Smaller quantities do not penetrate the deeper burning zones,
which have sufficient heat to evaporate quantities of water from surrounding peat, and then spread
through the dried material.
Special nozzles consisting of pipes long enough to reach the bottom of the fire are helpful. The
lower end is plugged, and a fairly large hole is drilled in the plug to wash humus out of the way
as the pipe is pushed down, and smaller holes in the side spread a soaking spray. The use of wet-
ting agents will substantially reduce the amount of water required, and may make the difference
between success and failure where the water supply is limited.
Such a fire may be confined by trenching down to inorganic or saturated soil. The digging may
be quite difficult because of roots, and a backhoe or dragline shovel might have to be used.
Peat fires spread very slowly unless they ignite surface vegetation or litter which set fire to the
soil at new points. If equipment is not immediately available to extinguish or ditch the fire, leaves
and flammable trash should be removed for 10 or more feet around it, to prevent rapid spreading
while arrangements are made to put it out.
Burning Box or Trench Air Burners’ system (see Fig. 1.36) provides a method for burning
wood products on site in either a refractory-lined box or an earthen-lined trench. The operating
principle of the air curtain within an incineration setup is based on a controlled high-velocity
stream of air across the upper portion of the combustion chamber in which the clean wood waste
is loaded. For proper operation the air curtain machine has to provide a curtain of air over the fire
that has a mass flow and velocity that are in balance with the given mass flow and velocity of the
burning wood waste. When done well the ash from the typical wood waste is a very useful soil
additive, and as such offers a commodity that can be marketed to plant nurseries and farms as a
potting soil additive.

FIGURE 1.36 Incineration box by Air Burners, LLC.