Dry weather, wind fuel two area fires

RANDOLPH - The Randolph Volunteer Fire Department was kept busy with two fires over the past week, fueled by dry weather and strong winds.

Firefighters responded to a field fire at 11:45 p.m. Monday five miles south of the Highway 81 and 20 junction.

Earlier in the day, a controlled, permitted burn took place on the field owned by Brent and Jean Goestch.

“They babysat it all day and the gusts last night kicked something back up,” said Fire Chief Jim Scott.

The fire burned across the field and into the ditches of the highway and traveled north to the neighbor’s field owned by Dennis Kollars.

“The fire in the ditches was getting real close to the highway,” Scott said when about 15 volunteer firefighters arrived.

Randy Korth used a disc to break up the burning earth in the fields and the crew was on scene for about three hours to make sure all of the fire was completely out.

“It was one hotspot after another. We’d have it out and then it started up again,” Scott said.

The firefighters were able to refill fire trucks with water from nearby CVA for the long-haul firefight.

Last week, Randolph firefighters responded to another fire at 4:15 p.m. Friday, one mile north of Sholes.

Ash from a burn barrel escaped and started a large grass fire that began to threaten a nearby garage before firefighters extinguished it.

After ash escaped from the burn barrel, it “took off around all the outbuildings,” Scott said. “It’s still that dry, that’s how fast that thing spread.”

The fire traveled around several bins and burned a hole into a chicken coop that was being used to store hay.

“I don’t know how that (hay) didn’t light on fire,” Scott said.

The fire kept spreading and was starting to travel up the outside wall of the nearby home’s garage.

The property owned by Rita Isom was not seriously damaged and there were no injuries.

About a dozen firefighters responded and worked the scene for about 1 1/2 hours, Scott said.

Scott said he is getting numerous calls from people who want to burn. In fact, he got a call requesting a burn permit about 10 minutes before his pager went off for the Isom fire.

“Burn permits are on a limited basis right now until we get some more moisture,” he said.

Scott wants to remind people that due to the extremely dry conditions, any burning can be dangerous.