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Whenever possible, what you suggest is a good idea, but many times people just don't do it. I think this problem is more common with older tractors, people who own them for personal use on a farm, acreage etc., yeah why not stoke the fire even if just coals/embers, and may just not realize. Open fires usually are not found on jobsites. It's an excellent question, I've seen it brought up on other forums, clean that machine, keep a good extinguisher on it, and enjoy the use of it by using care while operating it, fires are dangerous, one ember is all it takes, if that fan is blowing back on the engine, just like a bellows. A broken, ruptured or pin hole leak from a hydraulic line can still cause a fire on a clean machine, in addtion to one that's had oil leaks, soaking into dirt, dry vegetation, sticks, twigs, leaves etc. in the pan, some of these belly pans are hard to get at to clean, same with putting out a fire. Cat had some problem on D8K's with the blade tilt cylinder hyd lines and I think it was due to design that was not the best, they wore through easily and could result in fire from the oil leak, might have caused a fatality, hard to remember now. I used to heat my lunch on the exhaust manifold on these in no time, it don't take much. I remember a Cat mechanic came to my site and changed out those lines. Big dairy operation near me lost a late model JD combine, caught fire, think about it, all that dry chaff you can't avoid, a bearing fails, heats up, chaff smolders and burns, hard to put out. Heck my neighbor had to harvest his last 200 acres before he could do his 300 acres, part of that was a field here and he usually knocks it down before deer hunting season, screwed up my hunting with standing corn, so clean that darned machine LOL !!!
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