Fire Departments asking farmers for help during Illinois drought

HOMER, Ill. (WCIA) -- Fire Protection Districts across Illinois -- including Sidney, Mid-Piatt County and Homer -- are seeking help from farmers because of a high field fire risk.

Parts of Champaign and Piatt County are in a severe drought and portions of 20 Central Illinois counties are in a moderate drought. Dennis Riggs, a Champaign County farmer, has farmed since 1969 and said he’s never seen a summer this dry.

“All of a sudden, mother nature turns the faucet off and we got problems,” Riggs said. “There's just nothing left, it's dry, it's flaky, you set a match to that and boom it actually sort of explodes.”

Riggs said he had to help with field fires in the past, where farmers can use tillage equipment to get ahead of the fire. He noted farmers’ responsibilities can change depending on if the crop has been harvested yet.

“If it’s getting into the standing crop you have to destroy a little bit of the standing crop to put a barrier in,” Riggs said. “If it's already been harvested, disk it up and the soil puts [the fire] out.”

Homer’s Assistant Fire Chief Matt Kosik has been with the protection district for 16 years. He said asking farmers for help preemptively is something they’ve never done before.

“We figure we get ahead of the ball, put it out there, get a list of numbers, one step ahead,” Kosik said.

Kosik said farmers can take care of their machinery to help prevent the fires from starting in the first place, and that there are measures civilians can take too.

“If you're going to have some kind of fire, cooking hot dogs, burning some brush, make sure you have a water source close by,” Kosik said.