Preventing fire from burning your builds

[xou816]

Hello everyone,

I was so glad today when I finally achieved building my auto-kiln! However I quickly got disappointed: I lost a couple of hoppers because of the stoked fire a few blocks away... but I don't see how I could avoid placing my hoper where it was. So my question is simple: is there any trick to stop fire from burning everything?

Thanks!

[Padfoote]

I believe that putting signs on your hopper helps prevent fire spread on the side where the signs are.

[Graphite]

Simply put, fire is a block that can only burn up blocks next to it. If there are no air spaces around the hopper, then the fire can't get close enough to burn it up. So yeah, signs and such could help. Sidings and such make for pretty decent aesthetics as well.

[ExpHP]

Any chance you could move the fire down?

Even a hopper with an unprotected bottom should be safe as long as it is 6 or so blocks above the fire.

[Kazuya Mishima]

Place the hopper a few blocks beneath the hibachi's. Your items will have to fall past the hibachi's so be aware that stoked flames can invade adjacent blocks and burn the items, destroying them, as they fall past the hibachis. You can use a torch to prevent the flame from doing this which i think is kinda gimmicky. I instead have my hibachi's shut off every push cycle.

[odranoel]

i was haveing the same problem when i first made my auto kiln. so i decided to take my time and use screw pumps to get a water flow to my kilns output point. then the water simply pushes the items a few blocks away into a hopper. maybe not the most efficient meathod, but then again i love haveing water channels everywhere :)

[PureZaros]

This MCF thread details nearly everything you need to know about how fire spreads: Predicting and Preventing Fire Spread
It's only up to date for Minecraft 1.1, but I'm certain that the information is still valid.

It helped me quite a bit when I was doing the Tree Spirit challenge. Good resource for anyone that likes to burn things.

[Heightren]

I heard in a video that you can avoid blocks from catching fire by placing iron bars in between the block and the heat source.

[ThePuzzleMasher]

I used to use cauldrons/crucibles as hoppers if they are too close to fire but nowt you can place signs on the sides and bottom of hoppers and still work properly.

[xou816]

Wow, many answers! Thank you everyone.
Well, I think that in my case the most simple trick is to put signs (or any block, actually) around my hopper since I really can not move my hopper away (it is placed on top of a BD which is really near the kiln itself).
Anyway, thank you everyone!

[SterlingRed]

Any side of a flammable block adjacent to a full space of open air within range of a fire can catch fire. This is why signs work, they aren't flammable and take up the open space.

Keep in mind if the space right above your hopper is within range of the fire it can still set your hopper on fire even if all the other sides are covered. In one of my kiln builds I had to create a sticky piston gate to block the top of my hopper whenever I wasn't pushing an item to the hopper. It made for an interesting challenge and looked neat when I got the timing working right.

[Foxy Boxes]

Keep in mind if the space right above your hopper is within range of the fire it can still set your hopper on fire even if all the other sides are covered. In one of my kiln builds I had to create a sticky piston gate to block the top of my hopper whenever I wasn't pushing an item to the hopper. It made for an interesting challenge and looked neat when I got the timing working right.

Couldn't you just cover it with a siding?

[Padfoote]

Couldn't you just cover it with a siding?

That kills the fun of making a moving cover though. :)

Which is something I wish I was able to get the timing down on...

But another way to prevent burning I just had come to mind was the flood the area above the hopper. That would add in some interesting engineering challenges and make it just that much cooler when completed.