Boyden, Iowa — Thousands of bushels of corn was damaged at a Boyden facility on Wednesday, November 4, 2020.
According to Boyden Fire Chief Chris Starkenburg, about 12:20 p.m., the Boyden Fire Department was called to the report of smoke coming from a grain silo at the Farmers Coop Society Elevator in Boyden.
The chief says the fire department saw some smoke from dryer fans as they approached the scene. He says it turned out that there was some corn in the silo that wasn’t fully dried. He says it built up enough heat that it started smoldering. He says their equipment didn’t detect any burning temperatures but did find corn that was well over 100 degrees. He says there were about 280,000 bushels of corn in the silo. He says they cooled down a few loader buckets of the hotter corn, as the employees were placing it in a pile on the ground.
Starkenburg says no injuries were reported.
The Sheldon Fire Company was asked to bring their aerial truck just in case.
He says the cause of the smoldering corn is undetermined.
Chief Starkenburg reports that it is hard to know how much corn is damaged at this time. Starkenburg tells us that even after they left, the employees continued to empty the silo to get at the bad corn, which was still underway Thursday afternoon.
He says the firefighters who responded were on the scene four hours. He also wants to send out a big thank you to the FCS employees for assisting them on the scene.
