Fire Near Former Packing Company First Of Many Over Weekend

A series of fires over the weekend kept local firefighters on the move as low humidity and high winds created the ideal conditions for fires to spread quickly.The afternoon of Friday, April 8, a fire was reported near the old Roode Packing Company building on South F Street in Fairbury. Assistant Fire Chief Barry Schwab told FJN, “That fire started accidentally in the grass near a large pile of old and very dry building debris. The suspected cause was the exhaust system of an idling pickup truck parked in the grass. A front-end loader was on location, fortunately, and the operator moved quickly to dig a fireline in the grass downwind of the fire in order to keep it from spreading further down the railroad right-of-way and into the adjacent corn stubble. Unfortunately, efforts to keep the fire out of the debris pile were unsuccessful. By the time I arrived on scene, the edge of the pile was already on fire. By the time our first fire apparatus arrived, the pile was fully involved, and I had already decided that rather than try to extinguish it, we would just contain the fire, protect exposures, and let the pile burn down to a manageable point. It didn’t take long--as I said, the debris was old and very dry. Within about an hour, the fire had burned down enough that the loader could turn over and spread the pile out a bit. Then we emptied our 2000-gallon tender on it, which settled it down to where we could comfortably turn the scene over to the property owner. We did have to coordinate with the Union Pacific during our operations since we were right next to double tracks and they had trains to bring through town. JCSO (Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office) assisted with that. We also had to call in Black Hills because there was a natural gas main nearby that the property owner would have to be mindful of when dealing with the burnt-out pile later.” Winds at that time largely blew the flames away from the building. Had winds been blowing in the other directions, the situation could have been much worse.This fire was just the first of several, creating a long and busy weekend for firefighters.There were an additional four fires in the Fairbury area on Saturday and another one on Sunday. Schwab said, “Yes, it was a busy weekend for Fairbury Rural Fire Department, and I think it’s fair to say that the primary factor there was the dry and windy conditions.” On Saturday, April 9, Jefferson and Saline County Emergency Management and the National Weather Service issued a warning, “Extreme fire danger will continue into the evening.”Smoke from Kansas Fires It wasn’t just local fires that impacted the area. Heavy smoke from wildfires in Kansas was evident in Jefferson County over the weekend.Public Health Solutions issued a warning on Saturday, “Much of the PHS district is being impacted by Unhealthy Air Quality due to several wildfires and prescribed burning in Kansas.”Emergency management advised, “Again we have an unhealthy layer of smoke that has moved up from the fires in Kansas. Stay inside if you would be affected by the heavy smoky air.”

Alice Wells

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