Paullina, Iowa — With the dry conditions and harvest underway, all fire departments have been busy lately with field and combine fires. But one area fire department has had four calls in four days.
According to Paullina Fire Chief Ryan Harper, the first call was reported as a truck fire just before 7:00 a.m.on Friday. Firefighters were paged to 206 North Wood Street in Paullina. When they got there, firefighters found no active fire in the cab of the truck anymore, just some items smoldering, with steam and smoke coming from inside the cab, according to Harper. He says the owner had pulled his fire extinguisher from the truck and used it to knock down the fire coming from the inside of the cab under the dash area. The fire appeared to have started under the dash area of the truck and appeared to be electrical. Firefighters were on the scene for about an hour.
That same day, at about 1:20 p.m., the Paullina Fire Department was paged out for a field fire. They found an active fire in the bean stubble with the wind pushing it north to the standing corn, says Harper. He tells us they received help from the Granville Fire Department. They also inspected the combine to make sure it had all the hotspots put out in the bean stubble. Upon investigation, it was found that a bearing had gone out and that’s what started the fire, according to Harper. He says they also had a disk come in and disk the burned area of the field to make sure there weren’t any hotspots that could rekindle and start a fire again. The Paullina and Granville Fire departments were on scene for about an hour.
The third call was for another field fire, at about 8:10 a.m. on Monday morning, October 3, 2022. When firefighters arrived, Harper says Assistant Chief Aulenbach found a compost pile that was smoldering in numerous spots but had not yet spread to the neighboring corn fields. He says firefighters spoke with the owners by phone and they stated that they were going to be out removing the compost pile. The compost pile was wet down to lower the fire threat if the compost pile continues to smolder. Firefighters were on the scene for about 40 minutes.
Then on Tuesday, October 4, at about 11:20 a.m., firefighters were alerted to a non-permitted fire during a burn ban. Harper says when they got there they found a trash fire burning in a hole. He says he spoke to an employee at the scene who advised that he had thrown some trash in there but there was no active fire at the time he threw it in there. Firefighters sprayed down the burn hole extinguishing the fire. The Calumet and Paullina Fire departments were on scene for about 20 minutes.
