Four area fire departments respond to barn fire on chilly Wednesday afternoon

Enterprise Media Staff report

Firefighters from four area departments responded to a barn fire Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 19, about halfway between Nashua and Charles City.

Nashua Fire and Rescue, the Charles City Fire Department, Colwell Fire Department and Ionia Volunteer Fire Department were called to the blaze at the intersection of County Road 240 and Windfall Avenue, about 4¼ miles northwest of Nashua and about a mile inside Floyd County.

Nashua Fire Chief Tom Johnson said the barn, which contained hay and equipment, was a total loss. He said a block heater in the metal-sided building may have caused the fire.

Firefighters were on scene for 3 to 3½ hours, said Johnson.

The temperature at the time was 4 degrees, and he said that made it more difficult to work the scene.

“It was chilly, not going to lie,” Johnson said. “We’ve had colder days with fires, but it was dang frigid. It’s never easy at a fire scene, and it’s tougher when you have weather like we had for this.”

The fire produced billowing clouds of smoke that surrounded the building in the frigid temperature, and Johnson said the burning hay made it difficult to get at the fire.

Part of the effort involved shuttling water to the farmstead to fight the fire.

“We worked well together, and a lot of that is that we’ve worked together a lot before this,” Johnson said about the fire departments that responded to the scene.

“In this day and age, mutual aid is really important, and we appreciate the help we got from the other fire departments,” he said.

There was a good turnout of Nashua firefighters, but having four departments at the scene “helped out a lot,” said Johnson.

Firefighters were called back to the farmstead at about 6:30 p.m. Thursday after the fire reignited.