100 Acre Fire Ruled “Suspicious”
By Gordon Hopkins
The cause of a grass fire Tuesday night is not yet known but has been deemed “suspicious” by local firefighters.
The first call came in at approximately 6:30 p.m., March 21. Diller Fire and Steele City Fire were paged out to a pasture fire on 576 Avenue, about two miles north of Highway 8.
According to Diller Fire Chief Jeff Nelson, who was the incident commander, “When crews arrived, it was found that there were two different fires within ¾ mile of each other. The fire to the south burned about 20 acres of pasture land and the fire to the north burned about 80 acres of pasture land.”
Nelson decided to call for mutual aid with Fairbury Rural Fire and Jansen Fire due to the rough terrain and the fire moving quickly at the time, “We were able to get the fire under control in about two hours and continued to put out hot spots for an additional hour.”
There were no reported injuries and no damage done to any structure, although there was damage done to fences.
Nelson told FJN, “The cause of the fire is unknown but is being ruled as suspicious.”
