Firefighters called to Evergy power plant to extinguish fire

Linn County firefighters responded to a hydrogen fire at the La Cygne Generating Station on Monday, Oct. 10. (File photo)

MOUND CITY – Linn County Fire Chief Randy Hegwald reported to the Linn County Commission on Monday that the Linn County Fire Department had helped put out a fire at the Evergy plant last Monday. He said they spent about four hours at that fire.

Hegwald said that it was a hydrogen fire underneath a turbine, so it had to be put out with dry chemicals. He said that 12 firefighters worked the fire and they rotated in sets of three because it was pretty warm where they were working. He said they did a wonderful job.

At the same time they were fighting this fire, other firefighters were fighting a grassfire, said Hegwald. All seven stations were out at the same time.

Hegwald said that he and other firefighters had been at the Sugar Mound Arts and Crafts parade handing out information to recruit new firefighters.

Hegwald reported that the number of calls for the past week was 11 making the yearly total 436. The calls were five motor vehicle accidents with injuries, one electrical wiring call, one aircraft standby, one dispatched and canceled en route, one special type of incident, one grass fire and one medical assist.

County Clerk David Lamb read the email from American Medical Response (AMR) operations manager Galen Anderson saying that there had been 13 transports making the total transports 17 for October.

Anderson wrote that AMR was gearing up for the Kansas Association of Counties (KAC) expo next week.

He also reported that in Linn County AMR still had one paramedic on leave and now had one emergency medical technician (EMT) opening.