Northwest Iowa — Two fire departments were called out for two separate fires in northwest Iowa on Wednesday in the 1:00 p.m. hour.
The Sibley Fire Department was called to a garbage truck fire in the rural area in the 5800 mile of 200th Street about 1:05. That’s about five miles east and three south of Sibley. Assistant Fire Chief Dan Bechler says the garbage truck was picking up a dumpster at a rural home. He says there must have been something hot in there, as when the garbage was loaded into the truck, and the truck started going down the road, it caught on fire. He says the operator noticed the fire and performed an emergency ejection of the load onto the road. Bechler says that while that made a mess, it protected the garbage truck from catching fire.
He says the rural resident helped firefighters pull apart the pile with a skid loader while they put it out with water and foam, and then he helped clean up the mess. He says firefighters were on the scene for a half hour to 45 minutes.
A few minutes after that page went out, the Orange City Fire Department got paged for a fire in a hog barn. Fire Chief Dan Roghair says they thought it was going to be worse than it was so they had called for the Hospers Fire Department to bring a water tanker to respond along with the Orange City units and the automatic aid from the Alton Fire Department, but they didn’t end up needing the extra water. He says when they got there they discovered that a passerby had reported the fire and it was an electric fan that had shorted out. He says the fire was out by the time they got there. Besides the fan, there was minor structural damage, says Roghair. In addition to the fire crews that responded, the Orange City Ambulance also provided assistance.
Roghair says they were on-scene at that fire for between a half hour and 45 minutes as well.
KIWA Staff Photo
