330B meltdown

[LogDog]

Hey all
heres a few pics of the 330b I was running friday when it caught fire,
was moving a few logs closer to the road so the self loader could reach them
smelled something and saw smoke out to the right, looked over shoulder to see flames comeing through the Hood.
shut er off and grab extinguisher.
open side panel and valve body area blazing, spray the area no results.
at this point I shutoff batteries grab my coat and step back.
sad, as an operator you are trusted with its care and when this happens it makes you feel so helpless.
was a good machine, fitted with a jewell clam bucket,
thanks for letting me share
Roger

 

[Acivil]

Don't beat yourself up... that's what insurance is for.

 

[Lashlander]

Great pictures. Always amazed me how hot and heavy a piece of Iron will burn.

 

[plantman.uk]

awesome pictures thank you for sharing them it's a shame it caught fire but as long as you are ok thats all that matters

 

[watglen]

She's still good for parts. Too bad though. Any idea what started it?

 

[JTL]

Wow! To bad she burned up.
I saw a 300 Hitachi burn up like that a few years ago. I think we could have saved her if it wasnt for the guarding on the rear end. By the time the operator found a crescent wrench in the cab, and started to unbolt the right side guard it was too late. All we could do was spray our extinguishers from underneath to no avail.

 

[tootalltimmy]

That was a hot fire. Sad to see. Tell us more if you know the cause.

 

[245dlc]

A number of years ago the municipal idiots from my home town were trying to do a "controlled" burn around the town yard. They were trying to control it with they're little FiatAllis FL-5 which really wasn't a bad machine well somehow it started burning right by the shop and it didn't matter how many fire extinguisher's they used (I think they used four or five) the heat and the hot hydraulic oil just kept it going. We arrived with the pumper and green flames were shooting out of the rad, we ended up dumping two five hundred gallon tanks of water on it before it was out. We eventually found a puddle big enough to set up one of our Mark 3's (portable fire pump for bush fires) and probably kept dousing it for an hour and half to make sure it was out and cold. It took probably another couple hours to put out the grass fire that crossed the highway. The municipality spent over $20,000 repairing the machine as a new one apparently would be to expensive....two years later they bought a new John Deere track loader.... oh and of course nobody got fired. I should of also mentioned the maintenance workers never notified anybody on the fire department what they were going to do or the town administrator and they did it on one of the windiest days of the year. So this one was preventable... very preventable, yours was an accident it happens sometimes it doesn't matter how safe your are but it happens. Dont feel bad maybe you'll get a newer machine

 

[AtlasRob]

At least you left it neatly in line for easier recovery.

Not much chance when that happens, as stated, dont beat yourself up over it. **** happens, at least your safe. :drinkup