Fires, Fires Everywhere

[dannyra]

The country side is burning out of control here in the Northern Panhandle of Nebraska and the Black Hills of South Dakota.

In Nebraska we have 4 active fires that are out of control burning about 20 square miles at the moment. We have been in a drought for a very long time. I would say a severe drought for the last 5-6 years.

A fire last week, east about 150 miles from where I live burned 10 houses down and damaged another 20 structures.

I'm unsure of the amount of fire damage in the Black Hills area of SD, but our neighbor had to drive the 100 miles there yesterday to evacuate his sister.

Temps have been in the 100 degree range for the last month. Today and tomorrow will be in the 105 degree range and winds will be increasing.

2 weeks ago we set an all time record high for this area at 113 degrees. That was the official temperature. Unofficially temps were up to 3 degrees hotter than that.

[dannyra]

Re: Fires, Fires Everywhere

I'd just like to request that everybody say a little prayer for us in the Panhandle of Nebraska. Fires have burned over 80,000 acres in 4 days and threatened the City of Chadron NE over the weekend. It burned into Chadron Friday night and burned 4 houses to the ground inside town. Chadron is much safer now that the fire on that side has been put out and there isn't much grass or trees left to fuel any more fire on that side.

However Harrison NE is a small town is in a very real danger of being completely whiped out in the next few days.

These fires are extremely dangerous. The one that threaten Chadron travelled 10 miles through pine forest in about 4 hours.

[aftford]

Re: Fires, Fires Everywhere

Danny.

The prayers of myself and my family are with you all at this time..

May you all be kept safe.

aft

[dannyra]

Re: Fires, Fires Everywhere

In the latest press release from the fire commander. The estimates for one fire were wrong. It's quite a bit less, so the total acres for the fires are roughly 60,000 acres now.

Fire fighting costs have exceeded a million dollars. The impact on our economy here is going to be huge. The pine forest that was burned had a lot to do with our tourist attractions. We are a very heavy agricultural area. We already had extreme drought conditions before the fire. Now a very large percentage of the hay and feed for local ranchers is up in smoke.

It's going to be a very rough rest of the year for ranchers here.

Good news is due to pretty low temps and higher humidities the last 2 days the fires are pretty much contained. They lifted all evacuation notices last night.

[dannyra]

Re: Fires, Fires Everywhere

Thanks for all the prayers. All the fires are pretty much contained now. Official estimates will probably be close to 60,000 acres with about 60% of it being National Forest Service land. Unfortunately the fire ripped through some of our most scenic areas. This area will never look the same again.