Northwest Iowa — Northwest Iowa fire departments remain busy with fire calls, highlighting the importance of farmers keeping a disk hooked up and at the ready to disk fire breaks, plus carrying a fire extinguisher in your farm equipment and other vehicles. Plus, Sioux County fire chiefs are urging farmers to delay harvest until the dry conditions and wind improve. There have been multiple field fires in Sioux County due to the dry fields.
On Sunday, the Hawarden Fire Department responded to a camper fire at the Big Sioux Recreation Area, the Rock Rapids Fire Department extinguished a combine fire, and the Granville Fire Department put out a combine fire in rural Paullina.
Hawarden Fire Chief Duane Schiefen says the campers weren’t home at the time and the fire caused moderate damage to the underside of the camper. He says the cause is undetermined.
Rock Rapids Fire Chief Ed Reck says a wiring harness was smoking on the combine, so they suspect the combine fire north of Edna was electrical in nature. He says a little bit of bean stubble burned too, and it was headed for a cornfield, but they were able to stop it in time.
On Saturday, the Calumet and Paullina fire departments were paged to a cornfield on fire a mile south and three and a half west of Calumet. Calumet Fire Chief Korey Dau says a hot bearing on the combine was the cause. The wind was coming up, so they were worried about crops burning, but they also stopped it in time. He says the Paullina Fire Department checked out the combine and made sure there were no hot spots.
Tuesday was also a busy day for firefighters with several departments being called out for fires in northwest Iowa fields.
