Sixteen fire departments help contain 300-acre cornfield blaze in Lancaster County
LANCASTER COUNTY, Neb. (KOLN) - Sixteen area fire departments and local farmers joined forces Sunday to put out a large cornfield fire in northeast Lancaster County.
Waverly Fire and Rescue responded to the fire just before 2 p.m. near North 84th Street and Branched Oak Road. The blaze began in a standing cornfield that was being harvested and quickly spread southeast due to strong winds, Waverly Fire Chief Ryan Mueller said. The fire jumped across both Branched Oak Road and 84th Street as it traveled.
To combat the rapidly spreading flames, Waverly Fire and Rescue declared the incident a county-wide emergency, requesting additional support.
According to the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office, the fire was sparked by an overheated bearing in a combine, which ignited both harvested and standing crops. An estimated 300 acres were burned.
By 3 p.m., the Nebraska State Patrol and fire crews began evacuating nearby residents as a precaution. Fortunately, no homes were damaged as they were not in the fire’s path.
Firefighters, along with area farmers, worked for approximately 3.5 hours to contain the fire. The scene was cleared by 6 p.m., but crews stayed overnight to monitor hotspots. Authorities are continuing to assess the damage.
Fire departments from Ashland, Bennet, Ceresco, Eagle, Firth, Greenwood, Hallam, Hickman, Malcolm, Mead, Pleasant Dale, Raymond, Southeast Fire, Southwest Fire, and Valparaiso all assisted in the effort. The Nebraska State Patrol, Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office, and Saunders County law enforcement also responded.
While Chief Deputy Ben Houchin was grateful for the farmers that also responded to help put out the flames with their own discs, he emphasized the importance of moving out of the way for first responders to get on scene. “That was one of our concerns...just having people being around that and just creating another hazard that the fire EMS had to deal with,” he said. “We’re just lucky nothing else like that happened...people stop all of a sudden and then the dust, you’re worried about that part of it too...you just plain can not see at all.”
No injuries were reported.
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