Massive hay fire erupts in Saline County
Posted By: BriAna Campbell
bcampbell@klkntv.com
It was a fire like they’d never seen before.
Dorchester Volunteer Fire & Rescue was first on the scene to nearly 4,000 hay bales engulfed in flames in a field in northwest Saline County Wednesday afternoon.
The blaze was caused by spontaneous combustion.
The square bales had been set up wet, and as they dried, the heat caused them to catch on fire.
Volunteer fire crews from Milford, Cordova, Beaver Crossing, Friend, and Wilber all assisted Dorchester with putting out the fire.
Crews were at the scene for 10 and a half hours, and used between 600,000 and 700,000 gallons of water to douse the flames.
Dorchester Fire Chief Brant Pracheil said out of the 60 firefighters combating the fire, none were injured.
"It is a little dangerous, but we’ve also trained for this kind of stuff quite a bit," said Pracheil. "We’ve also trained with our mutual aid departments, so everybody kind of knows what’s going on and [we] just try to keep everybody safe."
Keeping everyone safe is a community effort.
Two local bars in Dorchester provided food for crews fighting the fire, and the Saline County Emergency Manager delivered water and Gatorade.
Chief Pracheil says those acts of kindness aren’t something they take for granted.
"Oh, for us that was huge, because we couldn’t be out there all day, doing what we were doing and not eat, or have anything to drink, so it means a lot to us. We really appreciate it," he said.
The property owner’s loss on those bales of hay is approximately $500,000.
Fire crews will monitor the fire as it continues to smoke and smolder well into next week.
