Haystack Fire

SHELLEY – A late evening haystack fire yesterday south of Shelley left the area shrouded in smoke this morning.

Last evening at 8:54 p.m., members from the Firth Firehouse of the Shelley-Firth Fire District responded to a haystack fire on Barry Christensen’s property at 853 East 1000 North.  According to Dale Mecham of the Fire District, several brush trucks, two pumpers, and two tankers trucks were dispatched to the scene.  The fire was contained by removing bales from the stack. 

“We lost about 80 to 100 bales to the fire,†David Christensen, who owns the haystack, said.  “We had a tarp over the hay.  We don’t know; maybe rainwater got into the stack.†

Excessive moisture is the most common cause of hay fires. High-moisture haystacks and bales can catch on fire because they have chemical reactions that build heat, according to an article written by Ron Thaemert and Glenn Shewmaker in the University of Idaho Extension. Hay insulates, so the larger the haystack, the less cooling occurs to offset the heat.

This morning, Christensen was running his backhoe back and forth, isolating further the portion of the stack that was burning itself out.