The Hutchinson Fire Department was forced to keep a close eye on a large burning pile of trees and trees limbs Wednesday set ablaze by city crews.

Calls starting coming into the fire department and 911 around 8:30 a-m on reports of a large column of smoke rising up from around the Kuhn/ Krause company. Further investigation revealed the large fire.

Normally city public works employees are allowed to burn small piles of brush in the dump yard located just south of Krause, but in this case, they ignited a house size pile which did not sit well with Fire Chief Kim Forbes. He tells us, they usually want the smaller piles, but says they apparently had some larger stumps they wanted to burn, so decided to set the entire pile on fire so hopefully, it would get hot enough that it would also burn the stumps.

Forbes said the size of the fire and the large tree trunks being burned will force the fire department to keep a close eye on the burning debris for the next day or two. They sent a truck out again Wednesday afternoon to work what was still producing smoke Wednesday afternoon.

Forbes says they thought at first, it might have been Krause Plow that was on fire, but then learned what it was. He says he could see the smoke clear on the north side of town.

He says the city workers did notify 911-dispatch that they would be starting the fire, but according to Forbes, they didn’t say how big it would be.

The fire was also located near the Cow Creek flood way which poses a fire risk due to the dry grass along the ditch.