MEDICAL SPRINGS — A fire sparked on Thursday, June 29, when a hay swather hit a rock in a field near Medical Springs burned about 20 acres July 1 when gusty northwest winds reinvigorated the blaze.

The fire was confined to the unirrigated field north of Telocaset Lane about 3 miles west of Medical Springs, according to Colby Thompson, chief of the North Powder Fire Protection District.

Thompson said the 11 volunteers from the department who fought the fire, along with volunteers from the Medical Springs Rural Fire Protection District, kept the fire from spreading into sagebrush and grass that bordered the hayfield.

“That was our No. 1 priority,” Thompson said.

With warm, dry weather forecast to continue, along with wind in the afternoons, Thompson said firefighters will continue to monitor the field this week.

When the fire started on June 29, crews confined the blaze to 1 acre, Thompson said. Firefighters checked the field on June 30 and again on July 1, and they found no smoke or flames. But winds started to gust out of the northwest later on July 1, he said, and the flames spread rapidly through the windrows of hay cut earlier in the week.

The nearest weather station, along the Union Pacific Railroad tracks about 10 miles west of the fire, recorded gusts as high as 25 mph at 4 p.m. July 1.

Thompson said the fire mainly burned the windrows of hay, with little burning in the strips of green grass between.

The fire was burning away from structures, and none was threatened, he said.

Thompson said he’s seen fire burn windrows of cut hay before.

Volunteers worked on the fire until 11 p.m. July 1 and returned to the field for most of July 2, Thompson said.

“We put a lot of water on it in two days,” he said.