Hay fire burns in Desert Hills
MARC BUCKHOUT ~ MANAGING EDITOR ~ 6/30/2010

Some 90 tons of hay went up in flames on June 23 in the 800 block of W. Joy Ranch Road.
The hay, at Mike’s Hay Barn, caught fire shortly after an employee moving a load of hay accidently backed into a utility box according to Daisy Mountain Fire Marshal Phillip Dyer.
The incident was called in at 12:37 p.m.
“The investigation is still ongoing, but the best guess is that when the utility box got bent over it sparked. The owner said it wasn’t much more than 30 seconds after the box was hit that the hay went up in flames.”
Dyer credited the property owner and his neighbors for helping to get the animals, a host of goats, cows and horses, off the property in a timely manner.
Despite their best efforts Dyer said the fire department was forced to take a defensive position almost immediately.
“It was a deep smoldering fire,” he said. “We were out there in the middle of the day and it was generating a ton of heat. The hay was under a metal awning which seemed to intensify the heat. We had the fire under control pretty quickly, but the hay was piled up and every time it got some air more of it would catch fire.”
With the use of tractors Daisy Mountain was able to take down the piles of hay, breaking up the bales in the process. Eventually they would get the fire out by 5:30 p.m.