Watch how fast a field fire can spread in Iowa’s dry conditions

NORTH LIBERTY, Iowa (KCRG) - Conditions in Eastern Iowa are dry, meaning there’s a real risk of grass fires starting. The North Liberty Fire Department helped TV9 demonstrate just how quickly a small field fire can become so much bigger.

Tina Humston is the training captain with the North Liberty Fire Department. She used a match to light a small patch of dry brush on fire.

“The match can easily represent a cigarette coming out of a car window or even a spark from hot brakes from a Semi,” Humston said.

She said field fires can start small and be pretty unassuming, but before long...

“It can spread pretty quickly,” Humston said.

Within 30 seconds, the dry grass around the fire catches. Thanks to a gust of wind, the fire grows and spreads even more in just a few minutes.

It’s not until then that the fire and smoke may become visible from far away.

“You figure if it’s two minutes before someone notices it, it’s probably another minute for dispatch to process the call, another minute of two for us to get out the station and anywhere from four to 10 minutes for us to get on scene, it’s already gotten a lot bigger in that short amount of town,” Humston said.

She recommends keeping brush off properties to prevent a fire from moving closer to a house.

“Even a patch of grass in a neighborhood. Some landscaping and it spreads to one house and it starts on the outside and you have vynal siding, wood decking, some of those things that really get going really quickly, combust really quickly, then it’s getting up into the eaves, along the attic and into houses, then we have a field fire and a house fire and we have a lot of problems,” Humston said. “It does not take long for exterior fires to turn into interior fires given the building materials and the things we find on everyday houses.”

If a controlled burn gets out of control, call the fire department without hesitation.

This warning comes as several fires have been reported in eastern Iowa due to the dry conditions.

In Cedar Rapids alone, there have been at least 13 outside fires the Cedar Rapids Fire Department has responded to in the last three days

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