Fire damages Case quad-trac tractor

Very dry conditions are making the fall harvest a little more risky as the threat of fire grows with farmers finishing the corn harvest and completing fall tillage.
Around noon Monday the Benson Fire Department was called to a tractor fire in a harvested cornfield just south of the city on the east side of Minnesota Highway 29. When the firemen arrived at the scene, the large quad-track Case tractor was already engulfed in flames.
“Field conditions are quite dry, which greatly increases fire danger to remaining cornfields, as well as to farm equipment,” Kent Thiesse writes in his column this week on Page 7. “Extreme caution is advised during harvesting, especially on windy days.”
The dry conditions are showing up on the U.S. Drought Monitor map, which now shows a growing number of western Minnesota counties “exceptionally dry.” Much of both Pope and Stevens counties are now in this area, though Swift County so far has no townships in the affected area.
As of Monday, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources rated the fire risk for Swift County has “high.” That means that fires start easily and spread quickly.