(La Porte County, IN) - Firefighters across multiple agencies, with help from citizens, put out a farm field fire amid breezy conditions in the La Crosse area today.

 

Matt Schafer, a corn and soybean farmer, was asked if he could provide a piece of farm machinery to help combat the rapidly spreading flames. Schafer said his brother-in-law, Bill Bohling, operated a tractor to help create a barrier in the soil ahead of the advancing flames, which worked to keep them from further spreading.

 

“I was limited to spectator duty,” said Schafer, who noted another man on a tractor pulling a chisel plow that assisted in creating the barrier.

 

Combined with firefighters applying water from brush trucks, “we had it contained in a pretty short amount of time. It was throwing up a lot of smoke,” Schafer said.

 

Firefighters were concerned the flames could hop over a nearby road and threaten a house but the soil barrier worked to stop the flames from advancing further.

 

An irrigation system was also spared.

 

Schafer estimated the fire burned about 30 to 40 acres of soybean residue and other related vegetation left on the ground from the fall harvest.

 

So far, the official cause of the fire is not known, but the source might have been embers carried by the strong winds from a nearby burning brush pile.

 

Schafer lived a few miles from the burning field.