Pieces of a hot tire are suspect in three fires Tuesday afternoon north of Sawyer that destroyed about 20 acres of uncut wheat, burned several acres of CRP grass and a small bit of grass in a ditch.

Firefighters from Sawyer, Township 12 and Pratt County Rescue joined forces to extinguish the fires that were pushed by high winds.

The wheat field fire on the Kent and Joel Brubaker land was stubborn. After the fire was out and the firefighters had left, a hot spot flared up again and firefighters had to return to extinguish the fire again.

Earlier in the day a truck traveling south on U.S. 281 lost tire rubber on a wheel and scattered the hot rubber across the highway near Sawyer. The rim was running on the pavement throwing sparks and hot tire fragments that stated several small fires on the west side of 281 that were quickly extinguished, said Mark McManaman, emergency and medical services administrator for Pratt County. 

McManaman said he suspected that hot pieces of the tire went across the road on the east side causing grass to smolder until the humidity dropped and the wind came up in the afternoon setting the three fires. 

Fritz Glenn was cutting in a field next to the fire and tried to help by cutting wheat in front of the fire but the fire was moving too fast and Glenn had to abandon his efforts.

The CRP grass was green and the fire moved much slower than the wheat field fire. The CRP grass belongs to David Skiles. The third fire burned a very small are a ditch grass.