Northwest Iowa — Two fires were reported on Friday in our area.
A corn crib and two gravity-flow wagons were destroyed in a fire on Friday, December 3, 2021, near Hartley.
According to Hartley Fire Chief Brad Meendering, about 1:10 p.m., the Hartley Fire Department was called to the report of a possible corn crib fire east of Solsma’s Punkin Patch, four miles west of Hartley on Highway 18.
The chief says the fire department saw the corn crib on the unoccupied acreage fully engulfed as they approached the scene. He says they let the corn crib burn but protected a nearby shed, and extinguished the soybean stubble that had caught fire.
Meendering says no injuries were reported, and that the fire department was assisted by the Sanborn Fire Department.
He says the cause of the fire appeared to be sparks from a burn pile.
Chief Meendering reports that the corn crib, the wagons, and other contents were totaled in the blaze. He says the firefighters who responded were on the scene for about an hour.
In the southwest part of the coverage area, the Maurice Fire Department was also called out on Friday, but their call was in the evening — about 7:20 p.m. Maurice Fire Chief Jeff Vander Weide says the grass in a waterway had caught on fire at 450th and Harrison Avenue. That’s two miles north of Maurice and a mile east, or five miles west of the Orange City Subway corner on Highway 10.
Vander Weide tells us that someone had been burning terraces, and the fire crossed over into the waterway. He says they had it out in short order and were headed back to the station within 15 minutes.
