Hundreds of bales still burning, smoldering in rural Chase Co.

    It’s under control, but hundreds of alfalfa bales continue to burn and smolder in the  southwest corner of Chase County.
    Firefighters from Imperial and Lamar have been keeping an eye on the burning bales after an initial four and a half hours on the scene following the 2:45 a.m. fire call Monday morning.
    Imperial Fire Chief Doug Mitchell said the early morning call sent them past the Avenue 314 and Road 729 intersection, further west to three-quarters of a mile from the state line.
    Though a firm count has not been provided yet, estimates are in the hundreds of bales owned by Pro-Ag, Mitchell said. He counted eight rows of the large, square bales, which he assumes are organic alfalfa since they were on an alfalfa quarter of ground.
    Mitchell said they suspect cause of the fire was internal combustion after some of the bales became hot inside, “and started them up.”
    He said from just a mile or two out of Imperial, they could already see the glow close to 30  miles away.
    The decision was made quickly once on scene not to attempt to extinguish the bales as all of the stacks were burning.
    “There was no question to just let the bales burn,” Mitchell said.
    Instead, he said they focused their work on the 12 rows of bagged “haylage” lying 20 to 30 feet from the bales. The first truck on the scene directed its large hose to those bags, he said, as two porta-tanks were set up.
    On the initial call, the Imperial Volunteer Fire Department sent eight trucks to the scene with 17 firefighters.
    Lamar responded with four trucks and six firefighters.
    All of the trucks went back to their barns about 7:15 a.m. Monday, with the exception of one truck from Imperial and one from Lamar, along with five firefighters. They remained on scene until noon.
    After that, Ag-Pro personnel  kept watch on the burning bales.
    Later Monday at 6:30 p.m., IVFD sent four trucks out again and Lamar brought two to the scene, and watched the area until 9:45 p.m., Mitchell said.
    While there, they performed a controlled back-burn on about five acres of weeds to the north of the burning bales.
    Lamar firefighters who work in the area continued to keep a watch on it off and on Tuesday as they were able, Mitchell added.
    With Tuesday’s high winds, the fire chief fully expected to get another call back to the scene.
    However, he said by Tuesday afternoon the fire had “capped off” and was holding in any embers from escaping.