The Bismarck Tribune from Bismarck, North Dakota • 11

Dakota Reach us Randy Bradbury City Editor 701-250-8251 Section iiiJ The Tuesday, November 2, 1999 4'" "-f I I 1. -14 iljj. L.ll, I I III I WI-M Jll. I- I LJ- llll.U. IIJ I 1 JUIIjl L.IIU JlJj.l I 1 a i I' 1 if 1 The prairie fire west of -Watford City, near the Montana border, consumed the ranch house owned by Ed and Elma Bums.

The couple was not injured. By MIKE MCCLEARY of the Tribune KRIS FEHR Bismarck Tribune It was just a big red ball. It's a Gladstone Fire Chief Joe K. Wanner 1 spread into South Dakota The fire died down toward evening but immediately flared up again when the gusty winds began, she said. Some farmers were evacuated as a precaution, she said, and had returned home by Monday morning.

The wind affected radio towers and some firefighters in the field weren't able to communicate with their bases. A prairie fire caused by a downed power line between Hazen and Beulah Monday kept firefighters jumping to stay ahead of that blaze, too. Hazen Fire Chief Tom Beery said crews were called out at about 1 p.m. to a fire south of Beulah and finally contained it 2,000 acres and three or four miles later near a farm belonging to Link Reinhiller. The fire burned prairie, stubble and fence posts, but Beery said it didn't burn any buildings.

It did come within 50 yards of the Otto Raszler farm, south of Beulah. Firefighters finally corralled the blaze at a small creek and a fire line plowed by Reinhiller. Beery said Beulah fire were going to keep watch on "the fire through the night (Lauren Donovan contributed to this story.) Arnold Anton, a farmer from south of Gladstone, lost almost everything Sunday night in a quick-moving fire fed by 60 mph winds that took more than 30 volunteer firefighters to control. Gladstone Fire Chief Joe K. Wanner said the fire started in Anton's yard, about eight miles south of Gladstone, around 10 p.m.

Sunday when a ground anchor to an electrical pole broke in the wind. Wanner said Anton saw the blaze start, but it was quickly out of control. Gladstone, with a population of about 220, is situated 10 miles east of Dickinson. Wanner said the fire was out in 11 hours by 9 am. Monday.

"It was just a big red ball," Wanner said. "It's a disaster. I was almost in awe. You can imagine what this guy was going through he was losing everything." He estimated the loss of tractors, buildings, antiques and antique trucks, farm equipment and personal property at more than $300,000. Wanner said that Anton was born and raised on the farm, where the fire spared his home.

Richardton and Taylor fire departments also assisted in fighting the fire that Wanner estimated burned about 10 acres and didnt result in injuries despite the high winds. Southwest of Gladstone, at Sid Erickson's farm eight miles north of Amidon, a tree blew onto and broke an electrical line in a corral, said his brother, Ryan Erickson. The gusting winds blew the hot coals from the burning tree into a pasture across the road. If the wind had switched, the farm yard and haystacks would have been in the fire's path, Ryan Erickson said. Rex Sadler of Slope Electric Cooperative said the wind blew a tree over and broke a primary wire.

He said that although the line was sparking, once the power was shut off the danger ended. About nine farms were out of power for about two hours, he said. Although Sadler called it "a nonevent," that wasn't the case with a large South Dakota blaze south of Marmarth fought by more than a dozen volunteer fire departments from North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana It took close to 24 hours to bring it under control and firefighters remained at the scene Monday. Camp Crook firefighter and rancher Gary Tennant said a truck hauling hay at about 9:30 a.m. day lost a bearing and ignited at least 17 small fires within three miles.

Warm and dry conditions, with much winter grass on the ground, complicated firefighting at a time when usually at least a light snow cover discourages fires, he said. "I'm sure it traveled four miles in less than 20 minutes," Tennant said. "We got it stopped at a county road, the Marmarth-Camp Crook road. It was quite a sight, I can tell you." Tennant said he owned between 200 and 400 acres of about 12,000 acres consumed by the fire. One rancher lost "practically all of his winter grass.

There was a lot of fuel on the ground." He knew of no usuries to people or animals. Linda Davis, wife of Camp Crook fire chief George Davis, said the fire actually started just across the Montana border and quickly Oil I Monday 1 a firefighter ft 1 1 -fijffijiiy fills a large tanker with I water from Sather Lake west of Three Affiliated Tribes firefighter Jeff Miller walks along the edges of the prairie blaze west of Watford City, dousing the hot spots. The charred prairie looms in the background. Watford i I BIS 0 here." JEFFREY G. OLSON Bismarck Tiibune and the station went on the air." Mr.

Anderson was also the Muzak distributor for the past 30 years. "That went from one format elevator music to 60 channels of every format you can think of," Darrell Anderson said. Mr. Anderson took up running at age 60, was a ham radio operator for most of his life, was a member of the Elk's and Bismarck-Mandan Chamber of Commerce for more than 50 years. Mr.

Anderson bought a cafe, the Chateau Inn, in 1973, and later sold it. He also owned a print shop for a time, with his children sold fireworks in the 1970s and even owned a small farm north of Bismarck. Darrell Dorgan was the news director at KBMR in Bismarck-Mandan for six years in the 1980s. "He was a great guy," Dorgan said. "He was the last of the single operators.

He started from scratch and built four terrific radio stations said. "He was one of the guys involved in Meyer's expansion in Minot and Willis-ton. He was the general sales manager there for a while and then general manager here in Bismarck. Mr. Anderson left Meyer Broadcasting in 1963 and bought a small, local station, KQDI.

He renamed it KBMR-AM. "Big Country Radio" was a 500-watt, daytime station. He added KQDY-FM in 1968. In 1976, Anderson Broadcasting added KERR-AM in Poison, Mont. KQRK-FM, also in Poison, went on air in 1980.

In 1996, he added KSSS-FM in Bismarck. Darrell Anderson said his father never realized one of his last dreams, a talk radio station. "He worked on KXMR 710 for most of the 1990s. It just didn't happen until this year when he made an agreement with Cumulus to buy us out They finished up the engineering work vard Business School and took in a Dale Carnegie course just about every year of his adult life, said his son, Darrell. Roswell Henke worked for Mr.

Anderson for several decades: "For all he did in business, I remember him most for giving back to the community." Mr. Anderson took correspondence courses about radio repair and after high school worked as a telegrapher and radio repairman, a job that kept him out of the military during World War II. He kept up the same jobs during a few years in Seattle, where, his son said, he played in the K6 Wrangler Band for most of his three years out west Back in North Dakota, Mr. Anderson left the Great Northern Railroad after more than 10 years and was selling RCA televisions when he went to work for Meyer Broadcasting and sold advertising. "That was 1953," Darrell Anderson Dorgan, the executive director of the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of-Faije, said Mr.

Anderson didn't grow ug a journalist, "But he certainly understood the First Amendment." Dorgan said Mr. Anderson behind the news crew that won more than 40 local, state, regional and national broadcast awards. 1 Mr. Anderson was widely known for producing live radio broadcasts, from the World's Fair North Dakot a Pic Nic in the mid-1960s to the Zip To Zap, where he followed an army of college students from Zap to Bismarck's Sertoma Park. Mr.

Anderson received the Pioneer Award from the North Dakota Broadcasters Association. Mr. Anderson Is survived by his wife, IOrraine, and six children. Funeral services will be Wednesday at 10 a.m. at the Evangel Temple in north Bismarck.

Living on a Divide County farm through the Dirty '30s, teen-ager Andy Aiderson messed around with just about anything that involved science and engineering. He carved windcharger blades from wood and sold them to neighbors for 75 cents. He and a buddy built what amounted to a pirate radio station that fcbuld be heard two, sometimes three farms away. A.L. "Andy" Anderson eventually huilt a family radio empire and was a lireless promoter of Bismarck-Mandan.

Mr. Anderson died at his Bismarck home Sunday afternoon from "was 81. Although Mr. Anderson never graduated from college, he went to the Har.