Mitchell firefighters spent about four and a half hours Saturday afternoon battling a fire north of Mitchell.
Battalion Chief Zach Dalrymple they found small grass fire in the north ditch on 250th street east of Foster that spread north. “That had gone into an abandoned farm property”, Dalrymple said. “Once going into the property we found a hay bale pile, roughly 75 to 100, probably closer to 100, large round hay bales”.
Two grass rigs from Mitchell and a water truck from Alexandria worked to contain the blaze. “Once they got going, they were stacked pretty tight”, said Dalrymple. “We weren’t able to get water into the center of them, so they just took off. And once they do that, we don’t have enough water to put that out.”
Dalrymple says it’ll take two to three to days for the bales to burn themselves out. The property owner is keeping an eye on the burning bales.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation. No one was hurt.