RURAL FLOYD COUNTY – The Charles City Fire Department extinguished a fire in a large hoop building full of hay, saving the owner the loss of property.
The Charles City Fire Department reports that on June 19, 2024, at 11:30 PM, they were paged to a fire in a large hoop building on 220th street.
According to the CCF, “Dispatch advised us the building was full of large straw bales and was on fire,” they described.
Immediately upon arrival, the first crew attacked the front of the building to protect some of the equipment parked nearby. Once the equipment was removed crews then started attacking the fire from the front and the rear of the structure, allowing the homeowner to remove numerous bales stored near by preventing the fire from spreading or causing additional loss of bales.
“Fires like this are expectionally difficult to extinguish due to how tight the straw or hay is wrapped,” the department explained. “After cleaning equipment and refitting trucks we were at close to 2.5 hours on the call. We cannot thank our mutual aid partners Floyd Volunteer Fire Department and Colwell Fire for their assistance in attacking this fire. We also want to thank all the sorrounding departments of Rockford, Marble Rock, Nashua, and I’m sure others that I didn’t see that were constantly supplying us with water from their tanker trucks. Rural fires require us to draft water from our drop tanks and if the tanks run empty we lose all abilities to fight.”
(Photos via CCFD, courtesy of Lyle Staudt.)
expectionally??