Iowa farmers use caution while harvesting fields during Red Flag Warning

MCCALLSBURG, Iowa — Dry conditions persist in Iowa as the state goes from a too wet planting season to an almost too dry harvesting season.

The National Weather Service has issued a Red Flag Warning, as high winds and dry conditions are raising a risk for fires.

Angie Rieck-Hinz is a field agronomist in north central Iowa for Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. She has seen eight combine fires so far this harvest season. It’s a concern for her.

“I would just maybe like to remind people, you know, it’s always good to have a plan when you’re in the field,” said Rieck-Hinz. “If you’ve got a water wagon, if you’ve got a disk hooked up that you can plow under some residue, so you have a gap right that the whole field if the field starts burning, it doesn’t catch on fire and sweep across that whole field.”

With the Red Flag Warning, not as many farmers took to the field on Thursday.

“There are a lot of people that pulled out of the field today, realizing we were supposed to have higher winds than what we’re experiencing right now,” said Rieck-Hinz. “This residue itself is extremely dry so it’s very prone to burning.”

The dry conditions are a concern for those who chose to roll the combine on a day like this.

“Certainly concern, its one that had crossed my mind as well but getting into mid October we’re about halfway through corn so we’re really just trying to tread on and get finished up,” said Eric Weuve, who farms with his dad near McCallsburg. “I took extra precautions, make sure we’re up on our daily maintenance for greasing, and double check the machine.”

Weuve also brought a leaf blower to the field to use to blow corn stalk debris out of the combine to minimize fire hazard in the machine.

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