Lang
9/29/24
The recent dry weather made for a busy Saturday of vegetation fires for the Hills Fire Department, including one fire that required nine agencies to extinguish.
The department was called to assist the Lone Tree Fire Department on a field fire near the intersection of Wapello Avenue and 540th Street just before 1:15 Saturday afternoon. A half-hour after that call, they were sent to another vegetation fire at 4661 Dane Road. Due to limited manpower and the distance between the two fires, multiple other agencies were called in to assist.
The first arriving fire unit on Dane Road was from Tiffin, which found a large soybean field with an active fire spread to the southwest. Shortly afterward, apparatus from Riverside Fire and Hills Fire arrived on the scene and began fire attack operations. Due to the large size and the wind affecting the spread of the fire, additional manpower and resources were requested from additional agencies inside and outside of Johnson County. They included units from Kalona, Lone Tree, Wellman, North Liberty, Solon, and Oxford.
Personnel remained on the scene for over two hours working on fire containment and extinguishment. The fire is believed to have been accidentally ignited by overheated vegetation and crop material falling from a combine harvesting the field. An estimated 75+ acres of unharvested, harvested, and Conservation Reserve Program land were burnt.
In a statement posted to its Facebook page, the Hills Fire Department thanked Hills city councilor and retired firefighter G. Sommers for bringing Gatorade to the firefighters. The department also asks the public to watch such fires from a distance, as multiple bystanders and cars were blocking the roadway and made it difficult to battle Saturday’s blaze.
But the day wasn’t over for Hills firefighters. They were also called to assist with a vegetation fire near Nichols just before 4:00 Saturday afternoon along with units from Nichols, Lone Tree, Kalona, Riverside and Conesville.