Firefighters in Midt- og Vestjylland were called out to several fires on August 14, including a field fire near Kibæk south of Herning that was likely started by a single spark.
DR reports that crews from both Nordvestjyllands Brand og Redning and Brand og Redning MidtVest were dispatched to multiple fires in the hot weather on Friday. Several of them were field fires in farmland across the region.
Kim Bjerg Vemmelund, emergency director at Brand og Redning MidtVest, was also serving as incident commander during the day. Earlier on Friday he and his crews put out a field fire near Kibæk, south of Herning, per DR.
According to Vemmelund, it was very likely that farm machinery striking a small stone produced the single spark that ignited the Kibæk fire. He described conditions in the region as bone-dry, with very high temperatures and some wind, meaning only a tiny thing is needed to start a blaze.
He added that a discarded cigarette butt would probably also start a fire under Friday’s conditions. Vemmelund stressed that people need to be very careful during field work and in the countryside while the dryness continues.
The emergency director also praised local farmers, calling them very action-oriented in limiting damage. As reported by DR, he said field fires during harvest cannot be entirely avoided, but that farmers are very good at containing them and helping to extinguish them.
Similar fires in the same region
TV MIDTVEST reported that Brand og Redning MidtVest handled three harvest-related fires at the same time on August 13. Those were two field fires near Stauning and a fire in a straw baler near Brande.
The outlet described one stubble field as well blackened, while noting that the fires were relatively small and brought under control. It also described a combine harvester hitting a stone and creating a spark as a typical cause of field fires during the August harvest.
An incident log published by Hændelser.dk lists a vegetation fire in a field with crops at Skjern and Lem in Ringkøbing-Skjern municipality at 12:52 on August 13. Brand og Redning MidtVest handled that call-out as well.
The national incident overview from Beredskabsinfo shows several vegetation and harvested-field fire alarms across Denmark on August 14, including calls in Jutland. Brand og Redning MidtVest covers fire and rescue operations in the Herning and MidtVest area.
Save up to 2,800 DKK on Your Electricity Bill
FindElpriser helps you switch electricity providers quickly and easily.
No formal technical investigation of the Kibæk fire has been published. Vemmelund’s account, as reported by DR, describes the spark from machinery as the probable rather than confirmed cause. Publicly available incident logs do not specify the alarm time or the area burned at Kibæk.
