Photo courtesy facebook.com/FortyMileFD

By Chris Brown

Call 911 immediately

Dry conditions, high temperatures causing combine fires in Forty Mile

Aug 27, 2020 | 6:42 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Firefighters in the County of Forty Mile were busy during the recent heatwave, responding to seven combine fires in the past 10 days.

Most of the fires happened in the afternoon when the temperature was especially high, reaching about 35 C on some days.

“We do have extremely hot, extremely dry conditions and with those conditions, fires will start easily, fires will spread easily,” says County of Forty Mile fire chief Dustin McGarry, adding a fire ban was implemented by the county on Wednesday morning.

“This year we have a higher-yielding crop, which is producing a lot more chaff, which is basically the dust and the powder that comes off the combine as they’re combining. This powder is getting everywhere in the combine. It’s heating up on surfaces and causing smaller fires which can later engulf the whole combine or just little spot fires which the farms are catching quickly and extinguishing.”

He says there have been no injuries from the fires, but that three resulted in “total losses.” About 100 acres of crop and stubble have been lost due to the fires.

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The fire chief says farmers are doing everything they can do right now.

“They are very well prepared, they’re stopping as frequently as they can to inspect their equipment, make sure everything thing is in good mechanical condition, they’re blowing off their equipment to remove that chaff. They are being very diligent; they don’t want these fire, they don’t want to lose crops, they don’t want to lose combines.”

Farmers are prepared as best they can be and McGarry says everyone driving any vehicle should be as well, even as temperatures cool.

“People need to understand how hot and dry it really is and fires will start and spread very rapidly. So if people are going to venture out whether it’s hunting or hiking or anything, they need to be prepared with some sort of fire suppression to deal with something int he event that they do accidentally start a fire.”

He also says people should call 911 immediately when you see a fire to get the trucks rolling.

“We would rather show up and not be needed than be needed and not show up.”

The provincial government says each farm should have an emergency plan in place for fires. Tips include tilling a fire break and limiting vehicle access to harvested fields.