WINONA, Minn. – Firefighters have come to know their way to Shives Road along the Far East End outlet from Lake Winona. They took four calls over 26 hours for persistently burning compost and sawdust.
Wednesday, 2:07 p.m.: A truck, a tanker and a front-loader responded to burning sawdust on a brush dump and used water and foam to coat the fire.
9:50 p.m.: Firefighters came back to extinguish embers that had restarted the fire.
Thursday, 11:43 a.m.: Again with a tanker truck and a front–loader, firefighters tackled new smoldering and further spread the sawdust.
4 p.m.: A caller reported the sawdust smoldering again, but firefighters didn’t find any smoke. There was, however, smoke from a large controlled burn on a hillside across the valley.