[UPDATE 6:45 p.m.] Silage Pit on Fire West of Fortuna
Multiple engines are responding to a fire at Pleasant Point Road near Christensen Lane. Please avoid the area if possible. A silage pile has blazed up at approximately 6:10 p.m. The first engine on scene, a Loleta unit, reports that they might need more assistance than the initial call out.
UPDATE 6:25 p.m.: “We’re hitting it with water right now…Looks like we’re getting it pretty good,” reports the incident commander.
UPDATE 6:29 p.m.: “We got the fire knocked down,” reports the incident commander. “We’re just mopping up some hot spots.”
UPDATE 6:42 p.m.: Two photos. The first from Fortuna helps give a sense of where the fire is.
The second from close shows the toxic black smoke that firefighters had to deal with.
Black smoke from the silage fire [Photo by Matt Toste]
UPDATE 6:45 p.m.: One more angle. This one from the hill by Bear River.
UPDATE 7:49 p.m.: And this closeup:
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what is a sileage pit??
its a corn plant that has been chopped up then stored in a dug out spot on the ground instead of it being stored in an above silo. If put up with too much moisture it decomposes which creates heat thus the fire
Why aren’t they dragging those tires away from it? And if “sileage” means “compost,” this isn’t.
Dumped tires? What? af
Silage is made by chopping green vegetable matter like hay or corn and putting it in a location where you can keep air off it. It ferments and makes lactic acid which pickles it. Think saurkraut for cows. Back east they use tall silos to hold it, out here in earthquake country the stuff is piled in a pit, covered with black plastic then tires are used to keep the plastic from flying away in the wind.
Looks like a tire fire to me, the black smoke is the giveaway, biomass doesn’t make that black of smoke.
Apparently this is the silage pile “on fire”, but notice the large pile of tires near it, a tire fire could ignite the silage, but it wouldn’t have such black smoke.
https://www.google.com/maps/search/Fortuna+CA+Pleasant+Point+Road+near+Christensen+Lane/@40.5854084,-124.18466,137m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
Isn’t some silage bailed with white plastic and stacked?
Don’t panic it’s organic … silage
“Sileage”??
Blush…
Fixed. Thank you.
The last picture is Humboldt County’s cannabis future.
Old farmers trick to get rid of tires.