By Elizabeth Reiss
Beacon reporter

Volunteer firefighters from the Baltic and Renner departments worked for more than four hours last Tuesday to keep a fire under control on an abandoned farm site about five miles southeast of Baltic.
There were no injuries. The family of the late Orville Brende owns the farm site.
Firefighters were called about 10:15 a.m. after a controlled burn of an old branch pile spread to a barn and small structure, Baltic Fire Chief Michael Koopman said.
It wasn’t all bad, Koopman said, because the owners had wanted to burn the old buildings that they did not have a use for. “But I knew once that barn got going you weren’t going to try to stop it.”
“The family had wanted to clear the property off and had talked to us about coming out to do a controlled burn on the buildings sometime,” said Baltic volunteer firefighter and mayor Mike Wendland.
The two buildings started on fire when ashes spread in the breeze. Then firefighters burned down another building, Koopman said.
Koopman said it initially wasn’t so much the breeze that kept the fire going, but the way the building site was set up. Ashes from the burning branches on the south side of the farm ignited a granary in that same area. The barn caught fire shortly after.
“The weather wasn’t too bad, it was just the way that place lies, he said. “It got better as it moved to the north. “A little ash gets into the air and you never know what will happen,” Koopman said.