IVFD called to business, church, hay bale fire

half days, the Imperial Volunteer Fire Department answered three fire calls.
    Saturday’s call took them to a hay bale fire near Lamar, while a pair of calls Monday found them at a local business and church.
    The 5th to 6th Street block on Broadway was blocked off for a short time Monday morning when the firemen were summoned to the McNair Agency office.
    Fire Chief Doug Mitchell said employees called into the dispatcher about 8:40 a.m. after smelling smoke in the building. IVFD thermal imaging cameras found a bad ballast in a basement light fixture.
    “It was pretty bad. It had blown a breaker in the box,” he said.
    Traffic was rerouted around the block by the Imperial Police Department until the IVFD cleared its units from the street.
    Earlier Monday shortly after 8 a.m., the IVFD was summoned to Zion Lutheran Church at 1305 Broadway after an alarm was set off.
    Mitchell said as they were en route, they were notified that a small child had pulled the alarm in the building, so the units returned to the barn.
    Saturday night about 7 p.m., the IVFD also responded to a hay bale fire near Lamar along Highway 6.
    Mitchell said small hay bales on a trailer caught fire. Before arriving, Larry Schilke had used his loader to push them off the trailer into a ditch, where they were later extinguished by the IVFD.
    Mitchell did not have the out-of-county driver’s name.