Rolfes allegedly told a deputy sheriff that she was unable remove the carcasses “because of living and weather conditions,” court records show. Rolfes was also cited by the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office in 2022 for failing to dispose of dead animals on the property, court records show.Ĭriminal complaints filed that April alleged there were more than a dozen decaying animals, including cows, at the acreage that were not disposed of within 24 hours of death as required by state law. “Eventually, she figured it out,” Errthum said. Errthum said there have been no further complaints about Rolfes since January 2023. The recent DNR order levied the $2,500 fine and forbade Rolfes from violating the state’s open burning regulations. The inspection also noted numerous waste tires across the property and an outbuilding filled with them. Rolfes said “she had burned wet furniture, bicycle tires and other items that were in her basement when it received water damage,” the order said. Rolfes crumpled the warrant and asked everyone to leave,” the order said.īut a DNR supervisor, officer and deputy sheriff found evidence of tire burning, three burned appliances, and other burned residential waste at the site. In January 2023, a DNR officer obtained a search warrant to go onto the property to inspect it. “I just want people to leave me alone,” she said. She said she is disabled by a condition that requires doctors to drain fluids from her skull and that she feels attacked by neighbors whom she assumes are the sources of the complaints against her. Rolfes said her property often suffers from spontaneous fires with no apparent causes. There were several more complaints about burning at the property - with photographic evidence of the allegations - over the ensuing months, the order said. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources found evidence of illegal tire burning at an acreage near Earlville in 20. “We lost everything,” she said through tears, adding that it was nonsensical to allege the fire had been intentionally ignited. Rolfes told the Iowa Capital Dispatch that a “whirlwind” had ignited the tire fire, which consumed 10 new tires and 20 bales of hay. “And then it became that her son had lit them and she was unaware.” “Her first stance was that it didn’t happen,” said Andrea Errthum, one of the department’s environmental specialists who investigated the fires. A DNR officer told her that it is illegal to burn tires, which releases toxins that can pollute the air and groundwater.ĭespite the admonition, someone placed a refrigerator in the burn area after the DNR’s visit. No one answered a knock at the door of the residence during that visit, but Rolfes, in a telephone call with the DNR later that day, allegedly said she would not allow anyone from the department to go onto her property without a search warrant. The department initially investigated the fires in September 2022 after a local fire department had extinguished one and the complainant said it had been reignited.ĭNR officers noted a tire and wheel on fire during their visit, along with scrap metal that included tire wire and wheels, and a heavy layer of ash and debris on the ground, the order said. Someone made anonymous complaints to the DNR of more than a dozen fires at the rural Earlville residence of Jody Rolfes between September 2022 and January 2023. State regulators recently fined a northeast Iowa woman $2,500 for numerous tire fires at her acreage that persisted for months despite warnings they are illegal, according to a recent Iowa Department of Natural Resources order.
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