Combine FIRE!

As you can probably tell by the title of my post, we have had a stressful evening. The guys were combining corn at a field north and east of Whittemore this afternoon when my Dad stopped the combine because he heard something make a "clunk" noise. He asked Adam to come and see if he could figure out what was wrong with it. As he was heading over to see what was going on he noticed smoke coming out of the combine. He jumped up into the cab and told Dad to shut off the combine because it was on fire and he grabbed the fire extinguisher to see if he could put the fire out. He told my Dad to have Mom call 9-1-1 for the fire department. The fire extinguisher could not get down into the area where the fire was so he grabbed Dad's water jug and took that to see if he could dump it out. When the fire department arrived they were able to contain the fire and get my Dad out of the combine using a skidloader. By the time the kids and I arrived the fire was out and Dad was out of the combine. As we were sitting there I remembered that I always have the digital camera in the diaper bag so I grabbed it and took some pictures. After the fire was out John Deere arrived and looked to see what had happened. The firefighters had to use more water because the fire was still smoldering. Adam drove the combine over to Algona so that John Deere can work on fixing it tomorrow morning. Both the firefighters and the John Deere guy told us that it is a good thing that Dad stopped when he did. And it is a good thing that Adam was in the field when this all happened. Things could have been really bad but it did not turn out that way. I guess God puts people in just the right places at just the right times. I am thankful that Adam and my Dad are both safe at home tonight!

Love, Stephanie