Roaring wildfires tear across several states
Break in weather helps crews combat flames
OMAHA, Neb. – Firefighters across the country battled multiple wildfires Tuesday as tinder-dry conditions and high winds whipped up flames from Arizona to Florida.
With more than 1,350 square miles burned so far this year, officials at the National Interagency Fire Center said the amount of land singed to date is outpacing the 10-year average by about 30%.
Hotter, drier weather has combined with a persistent drought to worsen fire danger across many parts of the West, where decades of fire suppression have resulted in overgrown and unhealthy forests and increasing development have put more communities at risk.
A southwestern Nebraska wildfire that killed a former volunteer fire chief last week, injured 15 firefighters and destroyed several homes was about half contained, the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency said. But firefighters were racing to hold that line and finish a containment border, said Jonathan Ashford, spokesman for the Rocky Mountain Complex Incident Management Team.
The fire, dubbed the Road 702 Fire, has burned about 70 square miles of mostly grasslands and farmland near the Nebraska-Kansas state line and was estimated to be about 47% contained.
Meanwhile in the West, crews continued working to corral blazes in northern New Mexico that have charred a combined 225 square miles over recent days. Evacuations remain in place and several small villages were threatened. While an unknown number of homes have been destroyed, conditions have kept authorities from accessing many areas to survey the damage.
The largest of the wildfires has blackened more than 94 square in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Crews there were bracing for the weather to take a turn this week with more hot, dry and windy conditions forecast for the area.
Members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation joined Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on a call Monday with officials from the White House and federal agencies to appeal for more federal ground resources.
In Arizona, crews are working to encircle and mop up a 30-square mile wildfire on the outskirts of Flagstaff that burned 30 homes and additional structures last week. Aircraft helped firefighters battling a different major fire that continued to grow, burning 10 square miles in the Prescott National Forest in north-central Arizona.
A retired Cambridge, Nebraska, fire chief who was helping as a fire spotter in Red Willow County died Friday night after his truck went off the road in a blinding haze of smoke and dust. The body of John Trumble, 66, was recovered early Saturday.
Nebraska remains critically dry, said Ashford, who urged residents to use caution when doing anything that could spark a fire.
“The last thing we need is to have another fire started that we have to then fight,” he said.
Four new fires were reported Monday, two in Colorado and one in Oklahoma and Virginia, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Nationally, 11 large fires have burned about 342 square miles in six states, the agency reported Tuesday.