Northwest Iowa — Two northwest Iowa fire departments fought minor fires on Monday, March 28th.
The Boyden Fire Department was called out about 3:05 p.m. to a couple of small ditch fires north of the west side of Boyden. Fire Chief Chris Starkenburg says the ditch fires were only about a quarter of a mile apart. He says they assume that the cause of the fires was the same, but the cause is undetermined. Starkenburg says it had been so dry, the fires could have been caused by nearly anything. He says firefighters were on the scene for about 45 minutes.
Highlighting the dry conditions was a fire call north of Lester in the 1:00 p.m. hour on Monday. The call was to 140th Street and Hastings Street (that’s the diagonal road along the railroad tracks that comes into Lester from the northwest.) The call said it was about a mile north of the Lester fire station in northwest Lester. The cause of the fire is unknown, but similar fires were started on railroad ties under the tracks last week near Sioux Center, Maurice, Merrill, and Hinton by a passing rail grinding machine. Lester is on the same track, the Marshall Sub of the Burlington Northern Sante Fe Twin Cities Division, which runs between Willmar, Minnesota and Sioux City. Fire Chief Maurice Metzger says it was a minor call.
