The hot dry conditions have kept fire crews and farmers on their toes as harvest begins.

Vulcan County Ag Fieldman Kelly Malmberg says they can be started easily by combines and other equipment.

"It's one of those years, we're seeing it on harvest crops that produce fine dust, I think we've seen three pretty big fires like that one near Milo, but we've we've had a couple since on peas and one on lentils, and they produce a fine dust that gets on the engine and can start a fire off the engine of the combine, so there's been two fires east of Vulcan the last few days," Malmberg says.

He says farmers are doing what they can to alleviate the risk by having diskers and water trucks on hand.

 

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