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Fire crews called away from storm calls Saturday
By SHEL WILLIAMS
Idaho Falls Post Register (Idaho)
BLACKFOOT, Idaho — For Bingham County fire crews, Saturday evening’s storm was the least of their worries.
A fire at a potato cellar at 100 W. 1050 North prevented firefighters from responding to several emergency calls during the storm, which brought wind gusts of up to 70 mph.
“Normally, we would have gone out on downed power line calls and things like that,” said Capt. Dave Krumenacker of the Blackfoot Fire Department. “But we were strapped.”
At about 12:45 p.m. Saturday, two pumpers and three support vehicles were dispatched to the spud cellar, which was owned by Wada Farms.
“When we arrived, we found the cellar fully involved,” Krumenacker said. “A lot of it had already been burned to the ground.”
The potato cellar was one of four on the property, all of an older wood construction, roofed with stacks of straw covered with dirt. The burned building had about 31,000 sacks of Norkotah seed potatoes inside, enough to plant about 1,550 acres in potatoes this spring. Each sack carried 100 pounds of potatoes.
None of the spuds can be salvaged, said Greg Murdoch, who manages Agrimark Inc., a division of Wada Farms.
“They’re all going to smell like smoke, so you can’t send them to a food processor,” Murdoch said.
Also, he said, the unprotected potatoes can no longer be sold as certified seed.
“That’s a lot, but it’s not the end of the world,” Murdoch said. “The seed situation is pretty tight in Idaho. It’s really tough to replace them, and seed is fairly expensive right now.”
Dozens of firefighters battled the blaze, including pumpers from Shelley and Firth.
Fire crews began leaving the scene at about 6:30 p.m. but were summoned back almost immediately when the storm hit and burning embers began blowing toward the neighboring cellars.
“To me, it looked like a Roman candle, one of those fireworks with sparks blowing all around,” Krumenacker said.
One spark caught, lighting the straw and dirt roofing of the neighboring cellar and drawing firefighters back to the scene. They worked through the night to control and monitor the fire, clearing the scene at about 7:30 a.m. Sunday.
The cause of the blaze is still under investigation, Krumenacker said, adding that the cellar had electricity but no heat.