It’s been a busy past week for the Geary County Rural Fire Department as crews have been called out to over twenty grass fires since last Wednesday.

Garry Berges, Rural Fire Chief, explained that on Wednesday they responded to eight grass fires, and between two and four grass fires Thursday and Friday.

“Saturday, which was a calm day we were allowing people to burn, we ended up responding to eight reports of fires. None of them were real major ones, land owners just had a problem keeping them under control, winds were shifting or they had a problem with their equipment or not enough personnel.”

Sunday proved to be another busy day as crews were called in at around 11 a.m. and didn’t start getting released until about 11 p.m. Berges said.

“I kept one crew on a fire scene until about 4:30-5:00 in the morning because of the way the embers were blowing, and we had some tall grass around the burnt area that we just didn’t want to go back out on.”

Berges said he’s not sure how many total man hours have gone into fighting the grass fires, but will once they get all of the reports entered into their system.

“The main thing is getting all of the equipment back into shape. We’ve recorded where the fires are, what trucks responded on each fire and the personnel on each truck. Now as time permits we put them into the system.”

Logs that catch fire during a controlled burn is part of the cause for some of the fires getting out of control according to Berges.

“It’s old dead timber that caught fire during a controlled burn and then it just sits there and smolders and when the wind picks up it carries the embers on to un-burnt grass or other property.”

Berges confirmed that the majority of the fires were authorized through his office and burn permits were issued.

“But they still have to take precaution, make sure they’ve got enough equipment, enough personnel, water and just be careful with it.”

Berges hopes that most people know how to conduct a good burn so it doesn’t get away from them,”because it needs to stop on their property or they can be held civilly reliable through civil court if it goes onto somebody’s property.”

The forecast for the next couple of days shows that winds are supposed to calm down and their is moisture in the forecast, but Berges did add that the moisture probably won’t be a whole lot.

There have been zero injuries reported connected to the grass fires. Damage has been minimal, except for one of the fires on Wednesday, were 115 large round hay bales were burned on a property along Erickson Road south of Junction City.