A dangerous "bomb" in the form of a silo fire near Paul has been defused by firefighters who suffocated it.
A Tuesday fire in a 90-foot-tall silo partially filled with "haylage" - a combination of hay and silage - smoldered for hours at the Scott Jensen dairy. But it never ignited a combination of carbon monoxide and methane gas that had gathered over the cattle feed.The West End Fire Department closed all doors and plugged any holes that could feed oxygen to the haylage, Fire Chief Dan Korsen said. The blaze started by spontaneous combustion.
"It will either burn itself out of fuel or burn itself out of oxygen," he said.
As a precaution, they evacuated the dairy and blocked off nearby traffic.
"They're quite dangerous if they are allowed to free burn or if any oxygen is allowed to enter in," Korsen said of silo fires. "That's due to the gas buildup. The explosion could rip off the top."
Anything that allowed oxygen to enter the silo, including dousing it with water, "increased the chance of a bomb," Korsen said.
The oxygen-limiting silo is designed to preserve contents better than typical grain-storage bins.