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Rural fire chief bans all outdoor burning
McCOOK, Neb. — Red Willow Western fire chief Bill Elliott is banning absolutely any burning of any kind — even in a burn barrel.
There will be no burn permits issued for any reason, Elliott said. The fires “are coming too fast and furious,” he said. “And we ain’t done yet. It’s too dry. We’re sitting on a powder keg.”
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Elliott knows that if the powder keg goes off, his firefighters will have help. “That’s what fire departments do. They help each other,” he said.
Elliott says he can’t say enough about the response by area fire departments when RWW and McCook’s fire departments fought the March 6 wildfire that destroyed a McCook home and burned a man living in a canyon north of town.
“I don’t have to tell them what to bring. They know what to bring,” Elliott said. “Anyway, if I asked them to bring two trucks, they’d bring four. They know what we need.”
Elliott said the help from even far northwest was greatly appreciated. “A year ago, we went to an $80 million fire, the Highway 92 fire that burned a lot of houses,” Elliott said. “And Tuesday, firefighters from that area paid us back.” He listed firefighters from Keystone, Lemoyne, Ogallala, Wallace, Imperial and Grant. “They brought six trucks and two command vehicles, and stayed all night,” Elliott said. “They were a real salvation. We were beat. We felt so blessed to have their help.”
The firefighting effort that day and into Wednesday was “a great group effort,” Elliott said. McCook fire chief Marc Harpham listed firefighters and equipment from Cambridge, Culbertson, Holbrook, Indianola, Bartley, Beaver Valley, Maywood, Oxford, Edison, Hayes Center, Palisade, Wellfleet, Curtis, Trenton and Oberlin and Decatur County, Kansas.
And a lot of firefighters from the east were fighting their own a massive grass fire, at Wilsonville, the same day.
RWW personnel has been on the site of the John Kugler home that burned in the Tuesday fire every day but Sunday, keeping an eye on embers. “It can still flare up today,” Elliott said.
Elliott is at a loss for words to thank his own firefighters and those of the departments that responded to the fire — some he didn’t even call. “I don’t know who called all these people — I didn’t — but I’m sure glad someone did,” he said the day after the fire. Some don’t need to be called — they just know when they’re needed.
Elliott said he even got offers of help from as far north as Thedford and as far east as Omaha. “Omaha offered us hoses,” Elliott said. “The fire would be out by the time they’d get here, but the offers mean so much to us. The offers of help are worth a lot.”
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Elliott’s firefighters have been busy because it’s so dry, and he’s not sure it’s going to improve in the foreseeable future.
He’s placing a ban on any burning for any reason. And he’s asking that landowners keep an eye on anything they’ve burned lately because embers deep in a burn pit or burn pile are known to rekindle in a breeze.
For seven hours on Monday, March 5, Red Willow Western fought a grass fire southwest of McCook, a fire rekindled from a permitted burn on Valentine’s Day. If RWW and Culbertson firefighters and a windbreak hadn’t been able to stop that fire, at least three houses could have been lost, Elliott said.
And then the big fire Tuesday, March 6. It started with an electrical short north of McCook along Highway 83 and took off quickly through dry grass. In 60-70-mile-an-hour winds, it burned about 200 acres of scrubby trees and dry pasture grass and then destroyed a big home in Countryside Estates on the northwest corner of McCook. A man living in a makeshift tarp-and-stick shelter was burned and flown for treatment in a Lincoln hospital.
A large section of McCook was evacuated and firefighters from throughout the area converged to help fight the creeping blaze.
Saturday afternoon, RWW fought a third fire, burning ground hay and stacked bales at the North Sale Barn. And then Monday, they went to yet another fire — this one reported in a chicken coop south of McCook. “It was almost a pasture fire when we got there,” Elliott said this morning.
Firefighters used foam to douse that one. “We wanted it out,” Elliott said. The landowner suffered minor burns and was transported to Community Hospital by McCook ambulance.
Elliott said his firefighters are doing well, despite the repeating fires. “I’m proud of them,” he said, calling all of them “my kids.” Elliott has fought fires for almost 40 years and looks upon RWW as his extended family. It does include actual family — his daughter, son-in-law and three grandsons. They’ve all been together through fire and back.
Elliott chuckled, thinking back to the March 6 fire. “Some guy told me this would be a fire I could tell my grandkids about. I told him, ‘Heck. Two of my grandkids are out there fightin’ the fire!”