Bale fire spreads, destroys barn

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An old barn near South Heart, along with several hay bales, went up in flames Tuesday evening after a bale ignited.

“The bale wasn’t far from a barn and it caught the grass on fire and it burned right up to the barn,” said Ken Koppinger, South Heart fire chief. “By the time we got there, we didn’t even try to put that (barn) out.

“The wind was pushing the fire down in the field and we had about 40 bales on fire. We had to stop it from getting into any more of the bales.”

He added it only took about five minutes for the barn to be engulfed in flames.

The fire, which was located about 9.5 miles south of South Heart, may have been caused by a hot bale, Koppinger said.

“If it gets put up too wet, it keeps heating and heating and eventually it’s going to start on fire,” he said, adding he worries it may not be the last fire of its kind this year.

A neighbor noticed the smoke and called for help at about 4:30 p.m. Koppinger said. Twenty-four firefighters worked more than four hours to extinguish the fire, he said.

“We started unrolling bales and let that barn burn out completely, because there was no saving it,” Koppinger said.

Besides the barn, he said about 10 acres of Conservation Reserve Program land and about 40 bales were lost.

Nobody was injured.

Koppinger said the land belongs to Bob Privratsky.

Attempts to reach Privratsky for comment were unsuccessful.

Tags: news, local, fire, south, heart, barn, bale