With these ongoing dry weather conditions, a rise in field and combine fires have been seen this harvest season across west central Illinois, reports Monmouth Fire Assistant Chief Craig Cozadd:
“A lot of those fires, especially combine fires, it is not anyone’s fault, it is not negligence, it is just friction, bearings going on the machines, that start the fires. If they can’t get it under control and if you have wind, wind driven fires are just almost impossible to stop. That is where the farmers have stepped in bringing tillage equipment to create fire breaks along with the fire departments. On the commonsense side of it, those things can’t be helped, but as far as just burning, anything that doesn’t have to do with accidental fires, we just need to not be doing that right now. Everything is so dry. We can’t be having any kind of fires, especially if there is any kind of wind.”
Assistant Chief Cozadd reminds farmers to make sure the fire extinguishers in the farm machinery is up to date and operational, and when it comes to a fire in the field, call early and call often to prevent flames from spreading.
