Geary County rural firefighters worked three fire cases on Saturday.

According to Rural Fire Chief Garry Berges about 9:30 a.m. they received a call on approximately 23 large hay bales on Garrison Road that had caught fire overnight. An investigation was conducted while the hay bales were still smoldering. The cause is still undetermined. “We believe we had somebody go down in that area, throw a cigarette out or intentionally set the area around it on fire. It wasn’t reported. Nobody lives in that area. That makes three of those type of fires we’ve had in the past 30 days, out in remote areas where somebody just drops a match and does something, leaves the area. ”

Berges said the damage estimate was over $1,100.

Saturday afternoon authorities were called to a site adjacent to Lyons Creek Road for a controlled burn that had gotten out of control. While responding that they were also notified of another controlled burn that had gotten out of control in the Clarks Creek – Hoff Road area. Both were grass fires. There was no major property damage. In the first case on Lyons Creek Road about 15 acres burned, and in the second case about 40 acres burned. In the latter case Berges noted the owner had used a tractor and disk and disked around the blaze. Firefighters just had to put out a few hot spots where there were trouble areas.