The Winnebago County Board of Supervisors is working to assess the cost of the Mount Valley Township fire last spring and summer.
The fire was fueled by peat, an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation in wetlands. It’s highly flammable and can burn underground and produce a lot of heat.
Farm owner Mark Eaton conducted a burn on his land that led to nearby peat catching fire. Special chemicals were used to extinguish the fire and the price was well into six figures.
Eaton and his wife, Kalliiope, told the board this week they were left out of the decision-making progress.
“Well, it’s kind of disappointing that you can just spend money and not even talk to talk to us,” she says, while he followed with: “You didn’t talk to us. We tried to talk. I asked in the meeting with 19 people there, ‘Is this gonna work, with the water?’ ‘Well, we don’t know.’ In the meantime, you’re spending $160,000 of my money pretty easy.”
Supervisors Susan Smith and Bill Jensvold tried put some perspective on the situation, saying firefighters did their best to contain the fire as it spread.
“It was pretty tense for everybody. We were really nervous about people’s property, as you know, everyone was concerned,” Smith says.