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N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – After battling fires each day this past weekend Friday through Sunday, Jamestown Rural Fire Department Chief Rick Woehl is hoping for some much-needed precipitation in this week’s forecast, especially in light of additional fires yesterday.

The JRFD responded to a fire on Friday afternoon near Buchanan, N.D., just off U.S. Highway 281. Saturday was busy as well, with the department putting out what Woehl said were multiple fires on Saturday afternoon near Cavendish Farms just east of Jamestown, and two fires yesterday afternoon, according to Kari Lucin with The Jamestown Sun.

The JRFD also quenched a relatively small, one-half mile stretch of fire from what Woehl assumed was a controlled burn at a field about two miles east of Ypsilanti, N.D., off of U.S. Highway 281.

“There’s a lot of farmers that are trying to get their fields and sloughs cleared off prior to winter so they can farm those low areas next spring, which is all understandable, but as far as the fire department is concerned, when we get multiple fires all at once, we can be stretched pretty thin,” Woehl said.

Jamestown was in the third-highest of five ratings for the Fire Danger Index as of Monday afternoon at “High” but Woehl said some much-needed precipitation should help alleviate that. Nonetheless, he said the area has been relatively fortunate in terms of some of the fires that have already taken place.

“We’ve been fortunate there hasn’t been any large dollar losses. We’ve been lucky so far,” he said.

The forecast for Jamestown this week shows 50 percent or better chances of precipitation from Tuesday night through Thursday night, with a 10 percent chance of precipitation on Friday.