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Suspicious fire in Anderson Prairie

Date 5/1/2003 12:00 AM | Topic: News

Last Wednesday, April 23, an unplanned grass fire was started in Anderson Prairie on the Luther College campus. At 3:56 p.m., Campus Security was called and then the Decorah Fire Department was called in to control the flames.


According to the Decorah Fire Department report, "The center part of Anderson Prairie was on fire and moving north toward Baker Village when firefighters arrived. Two students collecting bugs witnessed two students in the vicinity of the area when the fire was started."

The two students were collecting insects for a make-up lab for Biology 12.

Due to the current investigation, witnesses' names cannot be released yet. However, according to one of the students, "I saw two guys coming out of the woods. We stopped to talk to them and then we headed up towards the woods. I heard the crackling and saw the fire jump across the prairie."


A burning ban was issued for Winneshiek County two weeks ago due to several grass fires. The ban was lifted Tuesday, April 29.

"We do not know if this is a criminal situation or an accidental situation," said Assistant Chief of Police William Nixon. "Right now we are just talking to people and trying to find out what actually happened. It is a little early, but we are hoping to have this resolved by Friday."

Approximately three acres were burned; however, because fire is a natural process in the prairie, no damage was incurred.

Kirk Larsen, associate professor of biology said, "Since we can't use bison [to control the prairie growth], we are basically limited to using fire to keep out shrubs, trees and other invading vegetation. We burn different pieces of it each year on different cycles to study the impact of fire on the biodiversity living in the prairie."


According to Larsen the plots burned in the fire were not scheduled for burning this year.

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Jennifer Rogers
News Editor

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