Fire calls

Glencoe Fire Chief Bob Scheidt said his department has been called to the Spruce Ridge Landfill seven times this year to extinguish fires.

The latest incident occurred Aug. 26, and Waste Management District Manager Mark Reinert said the fires started popping up in February.

The cause of the repeated blazes is not yet known, according to Scheidt. “It doesn’t look like any type of criminal activity now,” he said.

Members of the Hutchinson Fire Department conducted a Fire Cause Determination class Monday evening just north of Hutchinson.

“It was just a training exercise,” Hutchinson Fire Chief Brad Emans said.

Explaining how the class works, Emans said the department lights random fires to depict an accident or arson. Then the firefighters have to put out the flames and examine the scene. They also have to determine how the fire was started, if it was an accident or arson, and then interview people, and determine the cause.

Hutchinson firefighters were called out twice Thursday, Jan. 31, to deal with a pair of spills of ethyl alcohol at the Ohly Americas plant on Adams Street.

The first spill was reported at 12:02 a.m. Firefighters used absorbent materials to recover what company officials estimated to be 150 gallons of the food-grade alcohol, Fire Chief Brad Emans said Monday.

Sparks from a nearby burning barrel apparently ignited a wood pile and other materials in a lean-to at the Tim Halverson home about a mile west of Hutchinson on McLeod County Road 14 (190th Street.)

A fire that was apparently deliberately set in a pile of leaves using an incendiary device in front of a Hutchinson residence Tuesday night. It is under investigation by local and state authorities.

About 20,000 turkeys got roasted prematurely Saturday afternoon when a Grove City barn burned to the ground.

An attic fire that apparently was sparked by a nail grinder that ignited newspaper insulation in an attic caused an estimated $65,000 damage to a Hutchinson home April 25.