Rock Rapids, Iowa — The Rock Rapids Fire Department was called out on Tuesday, March 5, 2024, near Rock Rapids for two seemingly unrelated fire calls.
According to Rock Rapids Fire Chief Ed Reck, at about 3:30 p.m., the Rock Rapids Fire Department was called to the report of a grass fire near 1323 Harrison Avenue, a mile and a half north of town on K52.
The chief says the fire department saw a pasture fire headed for some houses. He says it was coming pretty fast, but they got it knocked down before it got to anything. As they were mopping that one up, the chief says they began to notice smoke coming from the other side of the river. Reck says he took off to investigate, and before he could get there, their pagers went off again with another fire call in the location he was headed to investigate — in a pit east of the Rock River Golf & Country Club. Reck says the trucks paused in Rock Rapids to refill with water and then headed to the other call.
Reck says no injuries were reported.
He says the cause of the fires appeared to be sparks from burn piles. He says the farmer did disk the perimeter of the fire afterwards to prevent flareups.
Chief Reck reports that the damage was limited to grass and cornstalks in both fires, which he says was quite lucky as the flames did get pretty close to some buildings and other stuff.
He says the firefighters who responded were out for at least two hours.
