By OLIVIA BERGMEIER
Lead Reporter - Salina Post
This time of year combines and other types of farming equipment are making their way through fields, down highways, roads, and local streets.
While harvesting a wheat field on Saturday, June 15, the driver of one of the four combines working the lot noticed a spark of flames between the wheat stalks.
Quickly afterward, fire engulfed a farm machine in the 4400 block of East Meadow Road. Saline County Sheriff's Office deputies responded to the field at 12:35 p.m., according to Sheriff Roger Soldan.
"They were cutting wheat when one of them noticed a fire in the wheat, so they went to cut around it, trying to isolate it, and the combine stalled," Soldan said. "Which resulted in the loss of the combine too."
"It may have been the machine that had an issue — they just didn't know at the time."
Soldan said the charred combine was a John Deere S670. With the fire spreading to about 80 acres of wheat, the total loss was more than $200,000.
Soldan said no one was injured as a result of the fire.
READ MORE: Day 3, Kansas Wheat Harvest Report