My son Jeremy and I are members of Fire District No.3 which covers the western third of Saline County and the east-central part of Ellsworth county. My wife, Liz, is a medical “first responder” for district 3. The majority of our fire calls are grass fires with some car fires mainly on I-70. Occasionally we get a bale pile fire or structure fire. I will go with my wife on car wrecks when extractions are necessary and help with that. I will post accounts of some of our fire runs and how weather affects them.

January 17, State St. and Hohneck Rd. lawn mower on fire in a shed.

Liz and I were driving home from Salina after church on State street rd. I commented to Liz that somebody was burning as there was smoke a mile and a half ahead of us. Seconds after I saw the smoke, the pager tones for a shed on fire. We arrived on scene within a minute and got out to investigate. We found that the home-owner had started his riding lawn mower after charging the battery just to get things circulated. The mower was parked in a lean-to addition to a garage. After running the mower engine a while the home-owner shut things down, closed the door and went in to watch football. Minutes later the wife looked out the window and saw smoke boiling out of the shed. They found the lawn mower on fire with its gas tank already erupted. The home-owner got a fire extinguisher and knocked down the fire to smoldering condition just before Liz and I got there. I checked the wooden framework of the lean-to as well as the mower, then gave a sizeup---a smoldering mower in a shed. Liz helped the home-owners remove some scorched equipment plus dragging the mower out while I walked to the road to show Sq. 330 the way into the narrow driveway. I detailed the personel on Sq. 330 to pull the booster line and cool the mower down. When they charged the hoseline, water flew everywhere! The lines and couplings had frozen at the last fire when the temps were 0. E-321 arrived at this time and they pulled a speedlay and quickly cooled the mower. Sq. 340 arrived also, and we took a second close look at the wooden timbers of the tin shed for signs of fire. There were none. The home-owner cooled things down with his fire extinguisher just in time to keep the shed from becoming involved. We then examined the breaks on Sq. 330, stacked hoselines and I called the incident finished. The wild thing about this call was that we were so close to the scene when paged. I, for the first time, called in that I was responding and was on scene at the same time! Later that night we were paged to a car on fire on I-70 mile marker 242. I responded but there was no fire. The car had just lost a back tire and made a few sparks.

February 1, hay bales on fire, Crawford St. and Link Rd.

We were paged to this fire at 4:30 in the morning. There were 3 big round bales and a hay medow burning. I responded to Brookville so I could bring a second truck from the station. Sqs. 340, 330, 350 and 360 got on scene almost at the same time as this fire was located at the center of our district. Jeremy responded to the scene and helped put out the fire while I stood by at the Brookville station. After about an hour, the fire was out and all went home. Cause of the fire was most certainly arson.

Feb. 9,grassfire in the medium, I-70, mile marker 236.

Grassland fire danger was "moderate" today. I was just walking up the stairs to my Dr. appointment in Salina when this fire was paged. Jeremy was also in town so I called a couple of firefighters, stating I could not respond. Sq. 320, 360 and 340 responded and quickly put the fire out as the gusty northwest wind did not jump the fire out of the medium. I ended up not responding but it was hard to listen to the action on my pager as this fire was only 3 miles from my house.

Feb. 17, grass fire Hedville Rd. and Humbarger Rd.

Grassland fire danger was in the moderate range today. Wind was light and temps were in upper 40s. I was in Salina at the Emergency Management office when the call came in---controlled burn now out of control. A farmer was burning brush piles and for some reason the fire spread to the pasture grass. I responded towards Brookville and I listened as Sqs. 320, 340 and 350 left their stations. Jed B. got on scene first and became IC. I got to Brookville and responded with T-342 following Justen in T-331 to the scene. We got on scene about the same time the fire was brought under control as well as the three Sqs. running out of water. Justen and I refilled all three squads from T-331 and all went home.

February 18,truck fire call and grass fire in the area.

Grassfire index was "moderate" again today with beautiful weather, ie. temps around 50 and winds around 10 mph. I was moving hay at grandma's when Liz called about seeing smoke to our northwest. We heard on the scanner that Lincoln county rural fire districts were working a fire 5 miles to our northwest. It was a controlled burn that got out of control. Later, Jeremy and I were working on my swather in the shop when the truck fire came in. It was on Reese Rd. and turned out to be my cousin's truck. Jeremy and I were loading into my pickup when dispatch came back on and said the truck driver had put out the fire. Jed B. had responded as well as Sq. 340 to check things out so we didn't respond to this call.

March 7, grass fire in the 10,000 block West Watkins Rd.