Sutherland, Iowa — Firefighters from four area departments helped extinguish a structure fire and related fire near Sutherland on Sunday afternoon.
Sutherland Fire Chief Mark Shriver tells us they were paged about 2:40 p.m. to 6350 440th Street, which is two miles north and a mile and a half west of Sutherland.
He says the main fire was in an old hog nursery building, which was totally engulfed by the time the fire chief got there. He says an old tool shed was also fully enflamed; with black smoke, and due to the strong winds on Sunday, was spreading north into the grove area. He says the first firefighters on scene called for mutual aid. Providing mutual aid were the Calumet, Hartley, Primghar, and Paullina fire departments. Chief Shriver says at one time they had four pumpers all going at once.
But, he says they contained the fire fairly quickly. He says about six local farmers helped them out too, as there was a standing cornfield just to the north of the fire. He says they disked the end-rows black, and the fire did not make it into the field.
Shriver tells us they also asked B&R excavating to come. They dug a hole next to the building and pushed the building and some burning trees into the pit and covered it with dirt. He says that basically took care of the rest of the fire concerns.
No injuries were reported.
Destroyed in the fire were the old nursery building, the tool shed, and their contents of tools and equipment.
He says they suspect that there was an electrical issue in the tool shed that started the fire as the electric pole that serves that building was on fire when they arrived.
He tells us they were there for about three hours.
Shriver wants to thank all the firefighters from other communities and the farmers who came with their disks. He says they didn’t even have to ask. According to Shriver, the farmers saw the smoke and headed that way. He reminds farmers how important it is to have a tractor and a disk handy, especially this year.
