Why would you burn wood chips? Wouldn't you use them for landscaping? If you had all the money in the world and could buy the exact, purpose-built thing you needed, why buy something sized and designed to burn animals? Why, with a barn full of barrels on site, would you not just use a burn barrel?
Are we able to make decisions for what someone chooses to use to dispose of unwanted wood? Chop up the wood with a chipper and burn it. Maybe there were some diseased trees/shrubs on the property that needed burning. Some infestations need to be burnt to be eradicated too. Not too much of a stretch to see what may have been the case IMO