Fire departments, MDC team up to extinguish wildfire on Monday

The Logan Creek Volunteer Fire Department chief is sending out a huge “thank you” to neighbors helping neighbors — all the fire departments who helped battle a 45-acre wildfire Monday on the Ripley-Butler county line.

Chief Terry Slayton said, “LCFD wishes to give a huge thank you for the mutual aid departments of Oxly, Current River, Doniphan, Butler County FD, and Missouri Department of Conservation [two dozers and crew] for all the assistance on our approximately 45-acre field and woods fire. This started from a tractor fire first, yet the wind hurt a quicker control.”

The fire burned on the west side of County Road 489. The east side of the road is in Butler County, the other in Ripley.

Slayton explained the fire began on the Blackwell family property when a man had mechanical issues with his tractor’s brake line and the fluid combusted. He was working in a pasture of sage and grass.

“We had good sustaining winds,” Slayton said. “He could not stop the fire, but he was not injured. He got away from the fire safely. We were paged at 1:20 p.m. and the last fire department-cleared at 4:30 p.m. I was the last person to leave. I left about 8:30 p.m.”

LCFD was paged as the primary department and two others as mutual aid. When the 911 call went out by cell phone, Butler County sent men and trucks, he said.

Slayton said all the departments can hear all the calls and “we had those departments helping us.”

The firefighters requested Missouri Department of Conservation fire crews to respond.

“They have to be asked, but they are always willing and they are a dedicated team trained to help out rural counties in the Ozarks,” Slayton said.

While the fire on the county line was an accident, Slayton wants to remind those who are doing yard and field work to be careful, especially on a windy day.

He said, “Using common sense would be a very good. I would say don’t be careless burning trash on a windy day. Grass and field fires can keep moving so fast. We are off to a busy start this spring.”

While Slayton doesn’t know how much water was used to fight the fire, he recalls different units tapping out to refill their trucks and returning to help fight the blaze.

According Butler County Fire Department reports from Tuesday morning, county firefighters arrived at about 1:25 p.m. and assisted Ripley County for three hours. BCFD had three trucks and nine men at the scene.