FROM PAGE 1 currence, according to the (reputable) website weather.gov. That’s in comparison to a household current of 120 volts and 15 amps, with amps signifying a unit of electrical current, while voltage times amp, equals watts—for the dmath inclined. At any meausure though, the fire danger of Tuesday April 6 was great.

“The fire danger for that day was very high,” Stanley Fire Chief Korey Hagenson said via email of the fire just off Pine Street at N, near Martino’s. With Spring a ‘prime time’ for Wisconsin wildfires, the cause was ruled as a lightning bolt, though even just a lighter or other flame could have done the trick just as well—a precautionary note. So how’d the department know it was lightning versus another cause?

“After my fire investigation took place I ruled the cause as a possible lightning strike,” Stanley Fire Chief Korey Hagenson said via email of the fire off Pine Street near Martino’s. “It seems that the lightning hit a guide wire that holds the pole up causing sparks and lighting the very dry grass on fire,” he said. With power briefly ceasing across town around 3:43 p.m., the call came in minutes later: the grass was on fire!

“I asked Chippewa County what side of the road the fire was on because of the wind direction that day,” Hagenson said. “I also had Thorp Fire call for a brush truck as I was on my way to the station thinking that the fire might be closer to the north side of Martino’s and would spread into the swamp. After I got on scene I had Thorp come over non 10-33,” he said of the standard code for a “non-emergency” response.

No swamps were set ablaze by the likely lighting on April 6, but that didn’t stop the grass fire smoke from drift-ing west across town. As to just what the fire department had on the scene at Martino’s? Lots of water, for one.

“We had Pumper 1, Pumper 2, a Brush Truck, ATV, and one of our tenders,” Hagenson said, with ‘tender’ in context meaning a water carrier. “We used Pumper 1 and 2 to put out most of the fire and I had 3 guys with water back cans on putting out hot spots,” he said.

So what would have happened if the fire was in Colburn or Wilson, also serviced by Stanley?

“If it was in Colburn I would have called Cornell fire and the Cornell Ranger to help,” Hagenson said. “If it was in Wilson I would have called Fairchild and the Augusta Ranger to help out.” For a lightning-sparked fire in a place without humans, meanwhile, Hagenson said that it would depend on the area and surrounding landscape as to how things played out.

As it happened, the fire was put out with relative ease, while rain later that afternoon helped cool things down and help the greenery return soon, though the fire risk is ever present. Coinciding with the lightning strike was the Spring election of 2021. So what about the election outcome as affected by the blaze? After all, the power briefly went out in town. Did this include the local fire station, where voting was underway in the effective council cham-bers?

“It flashed,” City Administrator/Clerk-Treasurer Nicole Thiel said of momentary power interruption at the local fire station, before the grid designed to keep things running smoothly kicked back in. Thiel said that the momentary power loss would not have affected the ultimate election results.

“No,” she said as to whether any component of Tuesday’s election equipment was hooked up to the internet, while she said “I assume” to a followup question of whether there was a power backup for momentary power interruption As to provider, the City uses technology provided by Chippewa County, including one electronic voting machine along with an electronic counter for otherwise paper ballots.

As to election results in Stanley, there weren’t many surprises. Specifically, Rick Hodowanic was re-elected as Ward 1 alderman with 65 votes to one write-in, Jason Meyer was elected to the post of Ward 2 alderman with four votes against four (scattered) write-ins. Laureen (Lori) Foster was re-elected to her post as alderwoman for Wards 4 through 8 with 10 votes to one write-in, and Jacob Huff was re-elected to his Ward 3 post with 3 votes to seven scattered write-ins.

At the end of the day, the non-partisan local elections turned out fine, fire or no fire. Don’t expect to see this happy ending make the national news any time soon. It wouldn’t sell airtime.