Be prepared if your field catches fire

In a lot of ways, a combine in a corn or soybean field is just about a perfect recipe for a fire disaster: There's plenty of dry plant matter, a lot of highly combustible fluids and a ton of friction between already-hot moving machinery parts. That's just in a normal year. Now, add to that the fact that the drought has sucked virtually all of the moisture out of this year's crops, and this year's fall harvest has "the potential to be explosive," farmers and firefighers says. Though it's important to take all the safety precautions you can before you start harvest, it's equally important to know what to do if a fire does start in one of your fields.