By Larry Phillips
Southwest Daily Times – October 7, 2013
More than two dozen firefighters worked through Friday night and into Saturday battling a hay-bale blaze at the Heifer Source facility located at 14826 Road 4 east of Liberal. It’s the second such fire in three months.
More than 4,000 bales were consumed in the early stages of the fire, according to Seward County Fire Chief Mike Rice.
“At 1842 hours (6:42 p.m.) on Friday, Seward County Fire Department was dispatched to a hay stack fire in the 14000 Block of Road 4,” Rice noted in a statement released at 3:30 a.m. Saturday. “As of 0315 hours on Saturday, around 4,500 bales were involved in the fire.”
Some four hours after Rice’s first report, he sent word more bales caught fire before daylight Saturday.
“An additional 1,700 hundred bales (caught) fire from blowing embers,” Rice reported. “(We) recalled help from Turpin, Tyrone and Liberal Fire at 7:43 a.m. Saturday.”
Seward County Fire initially dispatched three pumper trucks four brush trucks and a dozen firefighters. Assisting was Turpin Fire Department with six firefighters and three brush trucks. Tyrone Fire Department sent two brush trucks, a water tanker and six firemen, and Baker Road Department also provided a water tanker and a fireman.
Assistance was also on hand from Seward County Road and Bridge and the Red Cross.
“The fire is still burning and will more than likely burn most of the Saturday if not into Sunday,” Rice noted. “We have had trucks and staff on-scene since the initial call.”
Approximately 5,200 bales of cattle feed and 20 truck loads of tires went up in flames at the same site on July 12 this summer. The site is at the former location of Cattleco feed lot on Bluebell Road. The suspected cause of that fire was simultaneous combustion from high temperatures and hay that was fermenting.
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