BIG MANURE FIRE IN HICKSVILLE TURNS OUT TO BE TOMATOES

A manure dry­ing plant at 5C’s Farms in Hicksville was destroyed by flames Sat­ur­day morn­ing, but the manure wasn’t what burned. Instead, Edger­ton fire­fight­ers say it was toma­toes.

Accord­ing to the Bryan Times, fire­fight­ers say they had to wade through tomato peel­ings and seeds, which were as much as 6 feet deep in some places.

The fire started around 2 Sat­ur­day morn­ing in a large metal Quon­set hut just east of Hicksville.

One end of the build­ing col­lapsed before any­one arrived, and the other end was glow­ing red hot accord­ing to reports.

With the clos­est fire hydrant about 3 miles away, and heavy, thick fog, need­less to say, there were some delays in get­ting the fire under con­trol.

14 dif­fer­ent fire depart­ments and more than 100 fire­fight­ers from Edger­ton, Bryan and Flo­rence Town­ship responded, and it took about 11 hours to put out.

The cause of the fire is being inves­ti­gated by the state fire marshal’s office.

No injuries were reported.