Photo by Deb Gau Area firefighters worked to contain a fire that destroyed part of a grain elevator in Hanley Falls on Friday morning. The fire was reported around 4:30 a.m. by a BNSF Railroad crew. While embers from the fire posed a risk to nearby houses early in the morning, there were no injuries reported.

HANLEY FALLS — A large fire destroyed a grain elevator, and scattered embers over part of Hanley Falls early Friday morning. Fire departments came from as far as 30 miles away to fight the blaze, and some local residents had to temporarily leave their homes.

However, area responders said, no one was hurt.

Farmers Cooperative Elevator general manager Scott Dubbelde thanked firefighters and other responders for their help Friday.

“We have wonderful emergency responders in our towns,” Dubbelde said.

Hanley Falls Fire Chief Paul Neisius said the Hanley Falls Fire Department received mutual aid from several area fire departments. Ladder trucks came in from Marshall and Montevideo, he said.

The Yellow Medicine County Sheriff’s Office said a total of 10 fire departments gave aid to Hanley Falls, as well as area ambulance crews, law enforcement, and the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

In responding to the elevator fire, Neisius said, “Mainly we just want to make sure we can contain it as best we can.” Firefighters also monitored nearby homes and buildings to try and control embers being blown by the wind. Neisius said firefighters patrolled an area reaching about a block away from the elevator.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, Neisius said.

At about 4:30 a.m., a BNSF Railroad crew reported the fire, at the Farmers Cooperative Elevator in Hanley Falls, the Sheriff’s Office said. The fire was at FCE’s northern location in Hanley Falls, which is on the west edge of town. The cooperative also has newer facilities to the south of Hanley Falls, near Minnesota Highway 23.

Dubbelde said the elevator in the fire was a steel-clad wooden structure, with some concrete additions. At the time of the fire, he said, about half of the bins in the elevator were empty, and the old feed mill at the elevator had no grain in it.

Around the time the fire was reported, there were embers being blown into town and toward houses near the elevator, Hanley Falls residents said. Hanley Falls Mayor Richard Hagen said he helped some of his family members evacuate from their homes near the elevator Friday morning.

“My sister-in-law had embers land on her house,” Hagen said. At the time, he said, he could see flames coming out of the top of the elevator.

Hagen estimated that around 20 to 25 people were temporarily evacuated from their homes.

Hanley Falls resident Judy Enger said her husband received the fire page around 4:30 a.m. She could see the fire from the back of their house, which is located across the railroad tracks from the elevator.

“Right away, there was a little bit (of fire) actually coming through the sides,” Enger said of the elevator fire. “By a quarter to five, it was fully engulfed.”

Enger said she had closed her in-home day care for the day because of the fire.

Firefighters were still at the scene at 8:30 a.m., spraying water from ladder trucks onto the elevator.

Yellow Medicine County Sheriff Bill Flaten described the elevator fire as an “all hands on deck” situation. Responders from several area agencies worked together to contain the fire and to control traffic around Hanley Falls.

Fire departments from Granite Falls, Wood Lake, Echo, Clarkfield, St. Leo, Porter, Canby, Cottonwood, Marshall and Montevideo all responded at the scene, as well as the Granite Falls and Cottonwood Ambulance, the Yellow Medicine County Sheriff’s Office, MnDOT, and the Minnesota State Patrol.

While firefighters were able to contain the fire Friday morning, Hagen said the work at the elevator was far from over.

“It’s going to be a long cleanup,” he said. “There’s going to be quite a bit of debris to haul out of there.”

Dubbelde said the next steps for FCE after the elevator fire will be “getting the remains to a manageable level, and then cleanup.”

Dubbelde said the fire would impact FCE, but the impact wouldn’t be large.

“It takes away a very small amount of flexibility in our operation,” he said. “Our patron/owners will see very little difference in their level of service.”

A positive thing was that there were no injuries caused by the fire, he said.

“Whenever there’s a fire or a tragedy and no one is hurt, that is a huge plus,” Dubbelde said.