In Reply to: combine fires posted by Gaelen Lane on December 14, 1999 at 02:16:44 CDT:

hey there Gaelen,

in reply to your combine fire troubles. i farm here in central South Dakota and we raise a lot of sunflowers in this area. farmers, including myself, have experienced many troubles in years past with fires and we too have blamed it on static electricity. however we have discovered that the leading cause is overworking your combine which causes the manifold to run hotter and ignites the dust up there. then the smoldering particles will drift down to other parts of the machine making it appear to have started anywhere on the combine which makes us believe it is static electricity. e-mail me back as to what size header you use, you may need to just slow up a little. this sounds too simple but believe me it works!

seeya later,

justin