With bushfire season well and truly upon us, it is time to fight fire with fire; or with some tried and tested hazard reduction equipment like those from Silvan. Barry Ashenhurst looks at some options.
Those with no involvement in emergency services probably don’t know October 1 marks the beginning of what in this country we quaintly refer to as ‘the fire season’.
October, when our brief but colourful spring melts into a scorching summer, sees firefighters all over the country checking their equipment for preparedness and the last several weeks have already seen fires with some tragic outcomes for farmers.
If we can attack at least one side of the ‘fire triangle’ — fuel, heat and oxygen — by burning off fuel loads around farm infrastructure before a fire arrives, we stand a better chance of protecting our assets.
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One way to do this is with portable spraying equipment mounted on an off-road vehicle, such as an all-terrain vehicle (ATV), or larger capacity units set up on the back of a trusty farm ute.
Topped up with an apt herbicide, these sprayers can quickly kill off weed infestation such as Paterson’s curse and other ignitable vegetation generally growing around fences, buildings and in paddocks.
David Wilson, Director of Adelaide-based training company Adventure 4WD, set up two vehicles fitted with Silvan Selecta spray equipment and four of us spent the morning poking and prodding them and discussing how and where they might be used.
The first example is a 70-litre, 12 volt Selecta Rakpak Smoothflo spot sprayer mounted on the rear rack of a Yamaha ATV. The whole thing is retained by ratchet-type tie-downs.
It is a pretty neat looking outfit I’d have to say, and one that, as you’d expect, falls within the manufacturer’s rear rack capacity for that particular ATV.
Next to be prodded and poked is the larger 400-litre Selecta SQF400D fire-fighting unit, fed by a tried and trusted Honda 5.5hp (4.1kW) four-stroke engine. Standard equipment for this model includes a Davey pump, 30m of three-quarter-inch hose and a poly firefighting nozzle.
This combo fits neatly into the tray of the latest Isuzu D-Max ute, although it’s small enough to be carried in the dump-box of utility task vehicles (UTVs) such as the Yamaha Viking, Polaris Ranger or Kubota X1120D.
For the full story plus NFM’s special fire prevention feature which includes fire prevention tips and reviews on the latest fire fighting equipment, grab a copy of New Farm Machinery magazine issue 16, out now at a newsagent near you. Subscribe to the magazine to never miss an issue.
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Video: Guy Allen