My mower was on fire today from leaves!

[MRPLOW]

I was picking up leaves to day with my 52 inch wright stander. The leaves started to pile up over the mower and I kept going sucking um up, when holy **** there was a fire about 2 feet tall on the mower. The muffler is on the front of the mower and started the leaves on fire. It took me about 30 seconds to get the fire out, the whole time I was thinking that the gas tank is gonna blow. To anyone that has a mower with the muffler in front don't let the leaves pile up near it.

[ronslawncare]

thats some funny stuff i guess u aint gonna do any more leaves soon

[script]

During the drier part of the summer last year I was mowing a very dry lawn with my 21" mower and noticed that some grass had accumulated on the muffler and started to smolder. I stopped and cleared it off with a stick without a thought. After finishing that strip and turning to cut the next, I was surprised to see a small fire burning on the lawn. It was easily put out, but a frightening thought of what could have been.

[Lawnworks]

This happened to me when I was twelve years old. I had an old rear engine snapper rider. The engine was on fire and the flame was burning through/on the air filter. It scared me but I put it out, and I continued mowing. Gotta do what ya gotta do.

[BUSHMASTER]

time to install a halon 2lbs fire exsti. glad the mower made it through.

[Barkleymut]

"This happened to me when I was twelve years old. I had an old rear engine snapper rider. The engine was on fire and the flame was burning through/on the air filter. It scared me but I put it out, and I continued mowing. Gotta do what ya gotta do."

Hey Lawnworks- Did you replace the air filter? Just gotta wonder what a charred air filter would do to a carb. I'll bet she ran a little rough for a while. LOL

[MOW ED]

Erics Dixie Chopper is so fast he has to pull a sprayer behind him to put out the spot fires. :);)

[Getmow]

The same thing happened to me when I first started cutting. It was a JD 116 and she started blazing. I didn't have an extinguisher so the next best thing...a thermos full of sweet iced tea. BTW the JD didn't miss a beat.

[mdb landscaping]

the same thing happened to me. i was using a fradan push blower and we were in some bushes blowing the leaves out. a bunch of leaves rubbed against the muffler and ignited the whole pile. i quickly pulled the blower back and started to jump on the small pile of leaves. luckily they went out, but it couldve been a massive brush fire if they hadnt

[UrbanEarth]

I had a crew doing a spring cleanup on a commercial property using a Gravely two wheel tractor and sweeper. I came to do a site visit and was talking to one of the crew, when another runs over and says that the Gravely is on fire! By the time we ran over the poly brush was ablaze, dropping blobs of burning plastic everywhere. Didn't have a fire extinguisher (dopey me, bought one next day!) so had to use a hose. Only problem was the hose didn't reach the machine, so we had to push the machine across the turf (still burning and dropping blobs of burning stuff). Really low flow out of the hose, but we finally managed to get it out. Luckily we didn't start the grass on fire.
The fire had started from dry grass building up on the muffler. Toasted the brush, but nothing else. Too much excitement for me, and scared the pants off the operator.

Alan

[bob]

Last year during the drought, I was power edging a sidewalk area when some sparks from the edger set the dry grass on fire. I had to stomp on it to get it out. It left a burnt area about 18" in diameter.

[SLC1]

Last year we had a John Deere outfront rider catch on fire and go totally up in flames, one of my workers was pushing a very large pile of leaves with it and some how leaves got underneath the hood and engine compartment and the machine caught on fire, my employee did not realize it and one of my other workers had to chase him down to tell him to get off the machine, we then had to call the fire department because the fire extingusher was not able to put it out and the trees it was under started on fire also so the machine, grass and a 35' high oak tree were all on fire before the fire department even got there. I was working on the other side of the building about a block away and I see my workers running to me yelling about some fire and then I saw all the fire engines coming. Needless to say the machine was insured and was more than 10 years old and I was able to get quite a bit of money for it and I acutually made out better than if I had to sell it. The loan was paid over 4 years ago and I bought it new for $10,000 and the insurance company gave me around $6000.00 for it, just goes to show you that it is good to have everything insured and paid on time.

[little green guy]

so far we've caught the mowers on fire about 20 times this seaon from pushing leaves. We just grab a backpack blower and blow it out, not realy a big deal. The fire is usually just the leavese on the front of the deck burning. The flames usually onlt get a couple feet high so it's not to bad. We did have one time this week where the mower cought fire and then cought a couple parts of the yard on fire too. It was realy kinda cool looking parts of the yard where inflames. We just blew it all out.