Dry fields, low humidity, high winds, and hot farm equipment have been causing harvest fires across the Midwest.
Paul Casper in Kingsbury County, South Dakota says there have been at least six combine fires in his county since last Thursday.
“There were two of them that required local fire departments from neighboring towns because the fields were on fire.”
Casper says soybean dust is the worst.
“We’ve got a commercial air compressor and leaf blowers to blow the combines off,” he says. “We are trying to keep everything off the motors and mufflers, but when a bearing goes out and starts dropping stuff on the ground, it’s another story.”
He says sparks flew from the combine on Sunday night, but the situation was handled quickly.
“It was very dark and then, all of a sudden you see these orange balls of fire dropping off the back end of the combine and oh boy, did we hustle then,” he says. “We had three fire extinguishers. Right away we saw it so it had to have happened quickly. We were able to get it put out.”
Jim Ed in Saline County, Missouri says the dry conditions have kept him on his toes this fall: there were at least four fires in the area over the weekend.
“There were three at Glasgow, the town that’s 12 miles from me, on Saturday. There was also one up by Marshall somewhere. It burned up one combine totally and the other two got out, and there were soybeans on fire. Luckily, there were neighbors nearby with a tractor and disks to get it under control.”
Gale Blomenkamp, with the Boone County (Missouri) Fire Department tells Brownfield fire prevention starts with clean, maintained equipment, and farmers should always have a fire extinguisher nearby.
“Make sure all your equipment, including fire extinguishers are charged and in the green. They should be sized correctly and ready to go.”
Rain is in the forecast for much of the Corn Belt this week. Eric Snodgrass with Nutrien Ag Solutions says rainfall totals will vary, with fire risk remaining in parts of the region.
