Osceola County, Iowa, southeast of Bigelow, MN — It seemed like it was going to be a major fire call. But that was not what they found — that from Ocheyedan Fire Chief Dan Hartwig about a call on Thursday, July 30th.
Hartwig says the call to 1124 Highway 59 went out around 10:40 a.m. The call said it was an empty hog building on fire. Hartwig tell us that the location was actually much closer to Bigelow, Minnesota — but on the Iowa side. It was about two miles east and a mile and a third south of Bigelow, or five and a half miles west and three and a half north of Ocheyedan. Sibley firefighters were paged as well.
He says when they got there, the Bigelow firefighters were already there, and the fire was out. The chief tells us that someone was doing some welding in the building, and some sparks lit the pit gas on fire and it exploded, along with some dust.
He says it wasn’t really a structure fire, it was more of a flash fire. He says no one was hurt, there were no pigs in the building at the time, and there was really no damage to speak of. He says they were only there for a few minutes to make sure nothing was smoldering or anything, and they were on their way back to the station.
