Area fire departments fights 15-acre brush fire in Town of Otter Creek
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TOWN OF OTTER CREEK — The Colfax fire department, along with six other fire departments, responded to a brush fire in the Town of Otter Creek along county Highway N Thursday afternoon, October 17. The Colfax fire department returned to the station about 8:30 p.m. that evening and received another call at 9:15 p.m. for another fire in the same location. — Photo courtesy of Noah Loglsett, Colfax firefighter.
Editor’s note: LeAnn R. Ralph serves as chair of the Town of Otter Creek and as chair of the Colfax Community Fire District Board.
by LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — The Colfax Community Fire Department responded to a call for what ended up being a 15-acre brush fire along county Highway N in the Town of Otter Creek Thursday afternoon, October 17.
The call came in at 2:22 p.m., and the Colfax firefighters returned to the fire station at 8:30 p.m., said Gary Hill, Colfax fire chief.
Unfortunately, another fire in the same area started again at around 9:15 p.m. and burned another acre and a half. The firefighters did not return from the second call until midnight, he said.
Hill said when brush fires flare up again, the flare-up is typically in an already burned over area and is due to a smoldering stump or a log or a small tree. The flare-up usually does not go anywhere because the fuel around it has already been burned, he said.
The second time firefighters responded to the Highway N location, the fire was burning in dry grass along the road that had previously not been burned. The fire was headed north and could have gotten into another section of trees if it had not been called in or if it had been called in later, Hill said.
Thursday was a windy day, and by evening, the wind died down, which helped in the effort to contain the fire, he said.
The Dunn County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the two fires and will be checking for any security cameras in the area or whether anyone noticed anything unusual, Hill said.
Seven
Seven fire departments responded to the Highway N fire with 42 firefighters all together.
In addition to the Colfax fire department, Boyceville, Sand Creek, Glenwood City, Prairie Farm, Menomonie and Ridgeland also responded to the Highway N fire, Hill said.
The Colfax fire department activated the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS) for the mutual aid involving the other fire departments, he said.
In addition to the equipment from the Colfax fire department, other departments responded with brush trucks, side-by-sides and tankers, Hill said, noting that the extra manpower and the side-by-sides with sprayers were particularly useful for fighting the fire.
The area that burned had been logged several years ago, so there was plenty of dry debris from trimmed branches to fuel the fire, Hill said.
All together, 25,000 gallons of water were used to knock down the fire, he said.
Since the Colfax fire department returned to the fire station at 8:30 p.m., Hill said he planned to send someone out to check on the fire for flare-ups within an hour or two because he would rather do that than have the fire department called out again at 3 a.m. due to a flare-up.
The second call came in before he had a chance to send someone out to check, Hill said.
There was about a 30-foot circle burning when the fire department responded the second time, and a couple of tankers of water were used to put out that fire as well as a few hotspots in the burned out section, he said.
Landowner
The landowner lives down by Milwaukee, and neighbors and the sheriff’s department had called him about the fire. The landowner came up that evening to check on his property, Hill said.
Hill talked to the landowner the next day, and the landowner had told the fire chief he had found a few hotspots on the property in the burned over area but nothing of any significance.
While the initial fire was still burning, a drone had been used to survey the area so firefighters were able to assess the size of the fire, Hill noted.
The Colfax fire department had contacted the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in River Falls about bringing a bulldozer to create a berm to help contain the fire. The River Falls office of the DNR gave the fire department a phone number in Jim Falls, he said.
When the Colfax fire department called the Jim Falls number, no one answered, and a message was left on the answering machine, Hill said.
No one from Jim Falls responded to the message, he said, but it worked out all right, anyway, since the fire departments on the scene were able to put down the fire and contain it without the berm.
The DNR is asking the public to avoid any burning outside because of the elevated fire danger across the state due to the lack of rain, dry vegetation and windy conditions.
Most of Wisconsin is at a high fire danger, and the state is experiencing varying levels of moderate to severe drought.
