May City, Iowa — About $24,000 worth of corn went up in smoke as the result of a fire near May City on Wednesday, October 19th, 2022.
According to May City Fire Chief Nick Schaeffer, at about 3:20 p.m., the May City Fire Department was called to the report of a cornfield on fire near 210th Street & Warbler Avenue, about a mile north of May City.
The chief says with the winds that day it only took about 20 minutes for the flames to reach the other side of the field.
Schaeffer says no injuries were reported.
The fire department was assisted by the Melvin Fire Department and six farmers with disks.
He says the cause of the fire appeared to be a hot bearing on farm equipment.
Chief Schaeffer reports that 15 to 20 acres of standing corn were destroyed. At the county average yield and today’s corn prices, that’s around $24,000 worth of corn.
He says the firefighters who responded were on the scene for about half an hour. Schaeffer says he really wants to thank the farmers that come with disks to help disk firebreaks at these fires. He says without them the fire likely would have jumped into the next field to the east and may have taken that field out as well.
