Granville, Iowa — A commodity shed and the cornstalks it contained were damaged in a fire on Saturday, October 10, 2020, near Granville.
According to Granville Fire Chief Karl Kellen, about 8:00 p.m., the Granville Fire Department was called to the report of a structure fire at 4718 Monroe Avenue, one mile south and two east of Granville.
The chief says the fire department saw the commodity shed at the feed yard smoking as they approached the scene. He says cornstalks in the shed were burning and the flame was extending into the roofing and rafters. He says they knocked it down quickly with water.
Chief Kellen tells us that one of the employees had been grinding cornstalks with a tub grinder and a bearing on the tub grinder must have failed, and the resulting embers got into a pile of ground cornstalks, which started the fire.
Kellen says no injuries were reported. He tells us that the Paullina firefighters are paged automatically to structure fire calls along with Granville, but when the Granville firefighters got there, they radioed in that Paullina could disregard. But they did have help from someone with a payloader.
Chief Kellen reports that there was minimal damage to the structure.
He says the firefighters who responded were on the scene for about an hour.
