Fire leads to lost hemp bales
A fire started in the late morning at Green Fox, located on the north end of Kimball, Thursday, Feb. 20. After the assistance of eight area fire departments, the incident was resolved in about nine and a half hours.
The Kimball Fire Department was paged out on the call to Green Fox at 11:46 a.m. Smoke was visible on the west end of the building, where agricultural product bales are stored.
Area fire departments and the Watkins Ambulance had responded by 12:30 p.m., according to Tri-County News reports that day. Besides Kimball, other area fire departments responding to the call included Watkins, South Haven, Eden Valley, St. Augusta, Rockville, Cokato, and Dassel.
Kimball Fire Chief Mike Schindler reported good response times, and expressed appreciation of the mutual aid from the other area fire departments.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Schindler reported that the State Fire Marshal came to Kimball in the morning Friday, Feb. 21, to review the incident.
As for losses, Schindler reported that the building looked “pretty good,” suffering some smoke -damage and very minimal fire damage. No injuries were reported from the incident.
The fire did lead to lost hemp bales. Skid steers could be seen Thursday afternoon removing smoldering hemp bales from the building to allow them to continue to burn outdoors, away from the building.
After darkness fell, flames and smoke remained visible outside the plant which uses hemp to make various products, including building products and nutritional supplements. Schindler reported that they cleared out at 9:15 pm.
Schindler also thanked the Red Cross and the Kimball Auxiliary for providing food and drinks, such as pop, water, and coffee, and the Kim-Built Country Store and Deli for donating pizzas to all the responding firefighters.
“That was huge,” Schindler said of these donations to the firefighters.
“We are so very grateful to be part of such an amazing and supportive community,” Green Fox Companies owner Ben Fox wrote on their Facebook page. “A special thank you to the fire departments and first responders … who worked tirelessly to help extinguish the flames, and clean up; as well as [those] who brought food and refreshments. We are so thankful no one was injured, and we’re happy to share we are already back at work.”