‘You can replace combines, but you can’t replace lives’; Ford Co. farmer recovers from fire

FORD COUNTY Ill. (WCIA) – A farmer’s harvest season went up in flames until one Ford County business stepped up.

Dry and windy weather continues to start fires in fields across Central Illinois. Paxton farmer Kevin Buhs came face to face with flames last week. His combine caught fire while someone was still inside. No one was hurt, but he’s shaken up.

“ I was sick to my stomach,” Buhs said. “I mean, it’s a sight to see.”

He was driving to help his brother, Bob, harvest when he saw it.

“Seen black smoke about four miles away and thought ‘Huh that doesn’t look good,’” Buhs said. “As I got closer, ‘I thought what’s the neighbor burning?’ Then all of a sudden it was the combine.”

Bob saw smoke and stopped to see a plastic cover of the combine had melted. Flames took over soon after.

“The windows exploded,” Buhs said. “There’s windows between the grain bin and the cab, and we had half a bin of beans and they just started running into the cab and lost it all in flames.”

The combine is beyond repair. It’s something more and more farmers are facing — a setback during a critical time.

“It’s not only affecting that you’re losing that piece of equipment, but now you’re standing still on how am I going to harvest my crop to get my income for the year,” Jason Brown, Gibson City Birkey’s Farm Store service manager, said.

Buhs’ combine was still burning when he called Birkey’s Farm Store in Gibson City.

“He said, ‘Kevin, we got you,’” Buhs said. “Said, ‘We got you, we’ll take care of you.”

That morning, they had a semi sitting in Polo to pick up another combine. By 1:00 p.m., it was sitting in Gibson the next day.

The loaned combine is Buhs’ for the rest of the season.

“They had bought that combine from us,” Brown said. “They always do all their service work with us, so we always try to go above and beyond for all our customers and get them up and running.”

Brown is also a volunteer fire chief in Iroquois County. He said there is little farmers can do during weather like this.

“[Fire] can really start anywhere — anything from bearings to just out of the blue any location on a combine,” Brown said.

Buhs and his team are cautious as they continue harvesting, but grateful more than anything.

“For Birkey’s to have us running within a day, that was something,” Buhs said.

Brown strongly suggests farmers blow off their combine with a leaf blower multiple times a day. The residue and dust from harvesting can easily start a spark, but keeping the machine clean should help prevent that.

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