20 Fires Sparked by Tire Problem on a Cattle Trailer

Blown-out tires on a cattle trailer started about 20 small fires along several miles of FM 609 near Flatonia on Monday.

The incident began around noon when two tires of a cattle trailer blew out while the pickup pulling it was heading south on FM 609. The trailer was loaded with about 25 head of cattle. Fires stretched from Slo John Road to near the Flatonia city limits.

Fayette County Emergency Management Chief Craig Moreau said he and his assistant Brenden Gilbreath were eating lunch at the Flatonia Auction Barn when they heard the call on their radios.

“We pulled over at Amigo’s (Travel Center) when we saw the guy coming with both tires blown out on the trailer,” Moreau said. “It looked like a million sparklers were going off.”

Sgt. Mark Pritchard of the Flatonia Police Department stopped the pickup.

“I asked him if he knew his tires were blown out,” Pritchard said. “He said he kind of knew something was wrong but he didn’t think it was that bad.”

Pritchard said the driver claimed vehicles were behind him but none tried flagging him down.

“It ground almost two inches of quarter-inch steel off the back of the trailer,” Pritchard said. “In my opinion, he had been dragging it for some time.”

Flatonia Fire and Rescue initially responded to the fires. They quickly called for help from surrounding agencies. Firefighters from Schulenburg, La Grange and Muldoon arrived to assist. Pct. 3 Commissioner Harvey Berckenhoff and a crew from his road department arrived with a water truck that they normally use for building roads. Instead, it was put to use fighting the fires.

Deputies from the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office, Flatonia Police Officers, along with Moreau, Gilbreath and a host of volunteer citizens used rakes, brooms and their boots to put out the numerous small fires.

The makeshift fire brigade finally brought the fires under control around 2 p.m.

“Thankfully, with all the rain we’ve been getting, it was mostly green grass,” Moreau said. “If this would have been in drought conditions, it could have been catastrophic.”

Flatonia Police collected the driver’s information and handed it over to the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office since all of the damage took place outside the city limits. Pritchard said the driver spent about two hours repairing damage to the trailer before continuing his trip.