Update on wheat field fire

jimont · Jul 23, 2016

Thought I'd update you on the wheat field fire yesterday. Two fire trucks destroyed (well over $500,000) along with 60 - 70 acres of standing wheat out of a total of nearly 600 acres. The upside is that within this farm are 8 very large chicken barns worth many millions that where spared. No one hurt so overall,very,very fortunate outcome.

jeremy in NE · Jul 23, 2016

Fires are not fun. I bet somebody got a butt chewing for loosing those trucks but as long as nobody got hurt thats all that matters. When we had the drought here I had a pickup with a water tank and pump in every field I worked in. Hope you have a safe harvest.

58 Deere · Jul 23, 2016

Our rule as a vol fireman is to park the truck in the black. I can not imagine what that must have been like to loose that many acres. Again glad no one was injured. Another rule we have is everyone goes home.

john in la · Jul 23, 2016

Its hard for me to imagine; in the high humid area I live in; a fire so intense and moving so fast that you could lose 2 fire trucks.

806man · Jul 23, 2016

One of our neighboring counties lost a police cruiser yesterday. Chasing bad guy, parked in high grass, car catches grass under the car on fire, toast. But, they did get bad guy!!!

sd pete · Jul 23, 2016

On our last major drought the CRP acres were released for haying and man for the fires. The fire departments mandated water in the fields. Sparks from the sickle and rocks were igniting the dry mass.

Dick2 · Jul 23, 2016

Before straw choppers it was common practice to burn the straw after a field would was harvested. High clearance plow hadn't been invented yet and there was no other way to deal with a lot of straw, so the farmers burned it. If a wind came up, it would race the fire across the field and into the neighbor's grain field. Rural fire trucks were inadequate and water was in short supply. If there was time, about the only defense was to get a bunch of tractors with plows and plow wide fire breaks to stop the fire - even that didn't work if the wind was strong enough.

Dad sent us out to field cultivate a wheat field that we had harvested. The straw kept plugging up the cultivators so my brother set fire to the field, even though I told him not to. The wind pushed that fire into neighbor's wheat field in about 3 minutes and burned the neighbor's field completely. We found out later that the neighbor had combined the wheat and dropped the windrows for baling. When fire starts on the prairie lands it can move real fast with a little wind.

marloweg · Jul 23, 2016

we only fight fire from the black NEVER in front of the fire. that is a basic wild land fire rule.to save buildings we do a wet down and then leave have done it many of times

Mark-Mi · Jul 23, 2016

Stupid to take a fire truck off roadin. Use a disk or chisel plow and start back away from the fire far enough to get 2 or 3 swaths in before the fire gets there.

jimont · Jul 23, 2016

Feel better now Mark ??????????

bobfeather · Jul 23, 2016

this was our local ( hagersville ) Ontario fire dept talked to a friend of mine today that was there & fought the fire, he said ( and he is a long time fire fighter ) that it was the scariest fire he had been to in a long time , thinking the wind changed ?
main thing is they got the fire out , no one got hurt , chicken barns were saved it is so dry here it is scary
can always get a new truck or two, county's got lots of $$$$$ ( well, at least we tax payers do LOL )
what ever , glad every one is safe
bob

jimont · Jul 23, 2016

Hi Bob. Can you imagine what could have happened once the fire got to those barns !! Clarks are very fortunate it didn't happen.
BTW, I'm at Sandusk, close eh!

jeremy in NE · Jul 23, 2016

Pretty much have the same rules here on our vol. department but sometimes the adrenaline kicks in. No injuries and everybody coming home safe is always priority.

showcrop · Jul 24, 2016

Easy to Monday morning quarter back especially for those with little to no experience with wild land fires. I expect that the two trucks lost were parked on the road at a staging area a mile or more from the fire, while their crews went by other transport to help crews that were actively engaged. It is usually units that are way out of range of the fire that are lost.

Update on wheat field fire

jimont

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jeremy in NE

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58 Deere

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john in la

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806man

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sd pete

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Dick2

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marloweg

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Mark-Mi

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jimont

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bobfeather

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jimont

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showcrop

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