Multiple fire departments battle brush fires

<p dir="ltr"><span>Firefighters from three area departments, Ellis Grove, Steeleville and Chester, battled a woods fire last Thursday near Gun Club Road in a rural area north of Rockwood.</span>

<p dir="ltr"><span>According to Chester Fire Chief Marty Bert, the homeowner was burning brush piles and the fire took off, resulting in a roughly 3-acre burn in dense terrain. The three departments combined to bring two tankers and three brush trucks to the scene, along with additional manpower.</span>

<p dir="ltr"><span>&ldquo;Those hills and hollows were hard to get to,&rdquo; Bert said. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t get any equipment down there and had to use all hand tools.&rdquo;</span>

<p dir="ltr"><span>Firefighters spent almost four hours fighting the fire and were back in service at 8 p.m. after being paged out at 3:51 p.m.</span>

<p dir="ltr"><span>But the CFD was back at it the next day for a grass fire on Vinewood Lane near Rockwood that had spread to a nearby shed and into some woods. Steeleville firefighters were also paged to assist.</span>

<p dir="ltr"><span>&ldquo;He was going to clean a little bit of overgrowth around his shed,&rdquo; Bert said of property owner Patrick McKinney. &ldquo;He said when he started it wasn&rsquo;t windy, but the wind picked up and (the fire) got away from him.&rdquo;</span>

<p dir="ltr"><span>While returning from the Vinewood Lane call, Chester firefighters received another page for a field fire at Buena Vista Farms at 1041 Chester Road, which is near the Buena Vista Rabbitry.</span>

<p dir="ltr"><span>Bert said property owners were getting ready to install a water line and were burning brush off an area where the water line would go when the fire got out of control.</span>

<p dir="ltr"><span>Around 4:40 p.m., the Ellis Grove Volunteer Fire Department was paged for a fire in the bluffs along Roots Road. Ellis Grove firefighters battled the fire, which was started by a property owner burning trash, for awhile before requesting mutual aid from Chester.</span>

<p dir="ltr"><span>Chester firefighters didn&rsquo;t return from station coverage until 10 p.m.</span>

<p dir="ltr"><span>&ldquo;We ended up going down and helping,&rdquo; Bert said. &ldquo;They fought it for awhile and ended up calling us. Getting to it was the problem with rough terrain.&rdquo;</span>

<p dir="ltr"><span>February has been a busy month already for the CFD, with received its fifth call of the year on Feb. 10 and ended last week with call No. 21. Chester firefighters average about eight calls per month and 100 a year.</span>