Field Fires Challenge Area Firefighters
Published: Friday, November 1, 2024
A rash of field and combine fires has focused renewed attention on fire safety as the 2024 crop harvest heads toward the final stretch. In central Indiana, a combine fire claimed the life of a 67-year-old farmer.
Harvest-related fires have been reported in the past two weeks across several Michiana counties. Fire officials said the fires were sparked by simple things: hot metal contacting with dry plant material, fumes from a car's exhaust pipe, and hot embers from a burn barrel landing on a corn field.
East of New Paris, Mike Neff said he lost an older combine after he and his son began harvesting soybeans on the afternoon of Oct. 10. He said they had just cleaned off the machine with a blower and were about an hour into combining when they noticed the monitor showing a problem with one of the belts.
They both climbed off the combine to look at the problem. His son went back into the cab to turn the separator off so they could replace the belt, but while he was doing that, he looked up and saw that a fire was raging in the engine compartment.
"He told me to get out of the way, and he had the fire extinguisher," Neff said. "He said, 'The combine is on fire!' I looked up on the top and it just looked like an inferno coming off the engine. While he was trying to put the fire out above, I was trying to stomp the ground (to keep the fire from spreading) because we still had standing beans. I got a towel out of the combine and started beating the ground. Luckily, we kept the fire contained until the fire department got there."
A neighbor came and finished harvesting his field of soybeans.
When asked what advice he would give to other combine owners, Neff said farmers should be alert to the smell of something burning, adding that these situations often begin with smoldering before they progress to a full-fledged fire.
"All I can say is, I would encourage guys to be careful," he said.
Neff considers himself lucky that the belt came off, which alerted him and his son to a bigger problem.
His combine was 35 years old, so Neff was already looking to upgrade his equipment—"but not this way," he said.
Dry conditions and low humidity have created favorable conditions for field fires. Across Indiana, firefighters have been working long hours to put out these blazes.
"We've had eight or 10 in the last two or three weeks," said Kenny Haun, fire chief with the Rensselaer Volunteer Fire Department. "It's just so dry out. We need rain."
He said there have been many triggers for these fires. One farmer told him that he hit something, perhaps a rock, and by the time he turned around, the whole field was on fire.
"We had another one," the chief said. "Believe it or not; this may sound crazy, but a girlfriend was taking her boyfriend lunch. She drove her little sports car out onto the field and stopped, went to the tractor to give her boyfriend his food and the exhaust system off the car set the field on fire."
Other causes have included mechanical failures and crop debris igniting from the heat of the combine engine.
Rensselaer firefighters also assisted with a field fire in Newton County in which standing corn was ablaze.
In Clinton County, a 67-year-old man perished from injuries he suffered after a combine caught fire on Oct. 18. According to WLFI-TV in Lafayette, the sheriff's office says deputies responded to a fully engulfed combine fire at around 6 p.m.
When first responders arrived, both occupants were able to get out of the combine. However, the passenger, Ted Huffer of Mulberry, was taken to an Indianapolis hospital in critical condition. He later died from those injuries. The cause of that fire is unknown.
Earlier this week, the National Weather Service issued a Red Flag Warning for Tuesday in Indiana. The warning said that an elevated fire risk was possible in parts of the Hoosier state due to the combination of warm, dry air, along with gusty winds, moving over parts of central Illinois and Indiana on Tuesday.
The good news for both farmers and local fire departments is that rain might be on the way. The NWS forecast calls for showers and possibly a thunderstorm on Thursday between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Return to Top of Page