News

Local fire department called out numerous times in area

By Scott Wagar

04/14/2015

This past week was a busy time for the Bottineau Fire Department (BFD) when the local firemen were called out numerous times to care for a variety of different fires around Bottineau. 

On Thursday, the BFD was called to a hay bale fire where a stack of around 600 round bales owned by Les Nelson caught on fire on a piece of pasture/hay land just south of Thompson Lake. 

Due to the large number of bales, and the difficulty to extinguish round bales, the fire department conducted a control burn around the stack to contain the fire to the stack.

At around the same time, the BFD was called to LeRoy Rude’s farm where one single round bale of hay was on fire, which the firemen controlled the burn of that bale. 

The fire department could not determine how the bales caught fire, so the two fires were turned over to the Bottineau County Sheriff’s Department which is currently investigating the fires.

The BFD was also called to Doug DeDemontigny’s farm later that evening for a tractor fire. The fire department was able to stop the fire, but the tractor was a total loss.

On Friday afternoon, two calls came out to the BFD for grass fires. The fire department’s first call came from Turtle Mountain Veterinary Services (TMVS), which involved a grass fire that started behind the clinic and had to be cared for by the fire department. 

The fire started through a burn barrel the clinic was utilizing, which released some burning material and started the fire.

As the fire department was heading to TMVS, a second call came from Roger Hahn west of Gardena concerning a fire in a tree row near his farmstead just west of Gardena. The firemen were able to contain that firein a short amount of time.

On Saturday, BFD was called out to Gardena after a residential burn barrel on the outskirts of the city releases some burning newspaper that caught some grass on fire, which the fire department was able to get out.