fire
By Lori SorensonMay 27, 2026A rural Luverne family is displaced after a fire destroyed their home Friday night. The 911 call came in shortly after 8 p.m. of a house on fire at 1073 131st Street northwest of Luverne. The caller reported that smoke was visible coming out of the house which was unoccupied. The residents of the house, Jason and Shawna Brandt, are accepting donations via Venmo. “The amount of support is…
May 13, 2026Area fire and rescue crews responded to a fire Tuesday afternoon at 1518 110th Avenue northwest of Luverne. Numerous water trucks delivered additional water as firemen battled blazes in 22 mph winds. A structure was on fire, as was a hay pile and a nearby silage pile. As of press time, the cause of the firew was unknown. The National Weather Service had issued a Red Flag Warning Tuesday, due to…
By Lori SorensonDecember 17, 2025Fire destroyed a shed and damaged a nearby garage Saturday night on a Luverne property south of I-90. The Luverne Fire Department was dispatched at 10:30 p.m. Saturday to 1102 U.S. Highway 75 in response to a 911 call reporting a garage/house fire. According to Luverne Fire Chief David Van Batavia, a storage shed on the property, owned by Hal and Lori Schmidt, burned to the ground. It was…
By Mavis FodnessJune 25, 2025A pig nursery owned by Ron and Lori Osenga of rural Jasper was destroyed by fire Friday afternoon. No people or pigs were in the barn. The Jasper Fire Department received the call at 4:19 p.m. Friday to the Osenga acreage, five miles south of Jasper in Rose Dell Township, Rock County. Jasper fire chief Kip Johnson said the barn was fully engulfed when his crew arrived at the scene. Mutual aid…
By Lori SorensonApril 16, 2025Fire departments from three different communities were on the scene of a grass fire north of Beaver Creek last week for over three hours last week. Multiple 911 calls came in around 4 p.m. Wednesday, April 9, reporting large flames getting close the house, buildings and grove at 575 121st Street, Beaver Creek. The acreage is home to Evan and Denae Meinerts, and initial reports were that the…
By Mavis Fodness, reporterMarch 19, 2025A March 13 fire at Magnolia Milling LLC at 107 N. Broadway Street in Magnolia was started by ‘natural combustible elements.’ According to Magnolia Fire Chief Scott Dohlmann, the Magnolia Fire Department responded to a fire in the steel-framed building located at the corner of Broadway and State streets at 10:09 p.m. Luverne and Adrian fire departments provided mutual aid. Dohlmann said heavy…
By Mavis FodnessFebruary 19, 2025The Hills and Luverne volunteer fire departments were recalled to a hog barn in Clinton Township Friday afternoon, Feb. 14. A caller to the Rock County Sheriff’s Office at 1:50 p.m. indicated a fire had reignited at a barn at 1153 41st Street northeast of Steen and that someone was unaccounted for and possibly still inside the barn. Fortunately everyone was out of the barn and accounted for…
By Mavis FodnessFebruary 12, 2025The Hills Area Volunteer Fire Department was paged to a hog barn fire Wednesday morning, Feb. 5, in Clinton Township north of Steen. This is the second fire at a hog facility in Rock County in just over a two weeks period. The Luverne Fire Department assisted at the site at 1153 41st St., where the barn fire was reported at 7:08 a.m. According to Hills fire chief Jared Rozeboom, smoke was…
By Mavis FodnessJanuary 29, 2025Luverne firefighters spent nearly a week battling a Jan. 20 hog barn fire that rekindled several times. The fire was called into the Rock County Law Enforcement Center at 8:11 a.m. Monday, Jan. 20. An alarm to a cell phone alerted barn owner Dale Reverts of a potential problem at one of the facilities on Country Road 9, three miles east of Luverne in Section 18 of Magnolia Township. Smoke was…
January 22, 2025The Luverne Fire Department was called to a hog barn fire at 8:11 a.m. Tuesday along County Road 9 about three miles east of Luverne in Magnolia Township. The firefighters spent the morning extinguishing the fire including the use of an excavator to tear open portions of the building to reach remote areas, fire chief Dave Van Batavia said.- By Lori SorensonApril 17, 2024At their April 9 meeting, Luverne City Council members approved emergency services contracts with the townships of Clinton, Kanaranzi, Luverne, Magnolia, Mound and Springwater. The signed contracts have been received from the area townships that are included in the Emergency Services Contract with the Luverne Fire Department. The new contract sets the fee for 2024 at $616.18 per section for a…
By Mavis FodnessApril 10, 2024An estimated 500 large round hay and cornstalk bales were lost to fire Saturday afternoon, April 6, according to Luverne Fire Department Chief Dave Van Batavia. The Luverne department was paged at 2:33 p.m. to the Greg Brandt farm at 1227 110th Ave. in Luverne Township. No people or livestock were injured or lost. The large cattle shed sustained minimal damage. When firefighters arrived at…
By Lori SorensonApril 10, 2024Luverne Fire Department and local first responders were called to a house fire at 203 Cottage Grove Ave. in Luverne around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 2. Julia Christensen called 911 to report a fire in the kitchen of the home, and when firefighters arrived, she and two others and a dog were safely outside waiting for them. According to information from the fire department, the fire started on the…
By Lori SorensonSeptember 01, 2023LHS sophomore Jaxon Lais returned home from football practice Wednesday morning to find smoke coming from his house on North Cedar Street in Luverne. He called 911 and then called his parents, Mark and Kari Lais. When firefighters arrived moments later, they noticed a thin curl of smoke coming from a small vent on the back side of the home. But when fire chief David Van Batavia entered the…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistApril 05, 2022Prescribed fire is one of the most beneficial management tools and is one of the most misunderstood. Spring burning gets a really bad rap from those who do not fully understand prairie ecosystems. Even when these benefits are explained, there will always be a certain percentage of folks who will disagree as they have drunk the wrong Kool-Aid served up at some local coffee shop. The most difficult…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistMarch 16, 2021When you spend your free time in the conservation universe, there is normally very little down time between seasons. The ice fishing season closed at the end of February, and in a short window of about 30 days I am heading into the heart of fire season. When it comes to managing grassland habitats, there is nothing else that can have such a positive impact as fire. Before human settlement, the…
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