Firefighters Answer The Call, Respond To Multiple Fires

Managing Editor/Publisher

Last week Grant County Firefighters were busy with not one, but multiple fires within a two-day span. The calls ended up illustrating just how well Grant and their "neighboring" counties work together.

Grant County Firefighters were called out to their first call at 4:48 p.m., Thursday, March 27.

"We were paged out to Historia Lane," said Grant County Fire Chief John Osborn.

According to Osborn, when firefighters arrived it was bigger than expected and there wasn't just one.

"When we got there, there were multiple fires all over the place that had been started by lightning," he said.
"We started bringing in Mutual Aid from Kearny, Stanton, Stevens, and Haskell Counties, as well as from Garden City, the Forest Service, Ed Neidert and Tri-Rotor."

Neidert and Tri-Rotor brought in spray planes to assist, according to Osborn.

"Tri-Rotor is contracted with the state for the Forest Service, so we were able to bring those people in," he added.

While firefighters were busy with the first fire call and within nine minutes of responding to it, another call came in.

"The second fire was reported at 4:57 p.m., northeast of the first one on Roads O and 8," Osborn said. "We had to split up our resources and send units north, while we fought fires by the houses."

Those firefighters at Historia Lane finished up there at around 8:31. And just five minutes before they finished, there was yet another call.

"We got a call to go to Cactus Feeders, because they had a mill fire," Osborn said. "So as soon as we got the one under control east of town, we had to go to Cactus Feeders."

At Cactus Feeders, Osborn said a night watchman had seen smoke.

"He had seen smoke coming out," Osborn said. "The Conveyor belt and a feed pile was on fire. He didn't know what had started it."

Osborn said in fires like that it is usually caused by the conveyor belt, but this one hadn't been running since 1 p.m., Thursday. The nightwatchman had not seen any signs of a fire until later on.

Firefighters would not be able to head for the station until 1 a.m., Friday, with some remaining out at the fire locations treating hot spots.

"It was a long night,
Osborn said. "We still had some hot spots east of town. There was a bunch of telephone poles piled up out there and those things are really hard to put out when they catch fire. We let them burn through the night."

They don't have an exact number of acreage burned as yet, according to Osborn.

"We are waiting on satellite pictures,
he said as of press time. "Early estimates are somewhere between 800 to 2,000 acres."

The fire to the northeast of Ulysses burned 450 acres by itself.

The acreage included a combination of grass and farmland. Due to their quick response,the loss was not as great as it could have been.

"We came close, but we didn't lose any houses," Osborn said. "The fire came close to several houses - right up to them. But, we were able to stop it. We had one barn burn down and we had a shed that was damaged."

There was no loss of life or injuries reported.

Osborn said they had a total of 25 fire trucks, 40 firefighters, five command units, two tankers and road and bridge personnel who responded to fight the fires.

"It was a long night," Osborn said. "When we got back to the station, we usually - after every fire - will wash the trucks and things. But this time, I told them to just get the trucks back in to service and we would wash them later."

Friday was also a long day for the local firefighters, who are all volunteer and have "other" jobs. After the majority of the them were able to head home around 1 a.m., they soon found themselves fighting yet another fire.

"We were called out around 3:30 p.m., Friday for a fire one mile from where one of the previous fires had been," Osborn said, adding that it is still under investigation. "It is a little suspicious. It started at the corner of the intersection so it's possible either someone started it or threw something out that started it."

Firefighters from Satanta were not called for Mutual Aid, but they showed up to help out with the Friday afternoon fire and Tri Rotor was already in the area and lent a helping hand as well.

This fire, which burned approximately 150 acres, was under control in about an hour.

Firefighters also had assistance from Grant County EMS.

"We were fine," Osborn said, when asked if the firefighters had water to drink. "EMS usually responds to all of our fires and they bring water for us. We all work together."

According to Osborn, Grant County was to be under a Red Flag warning until Tuesday night of this week and it was forecast to be "warm and windy" up until last night (Wednesday).

"The 10-day forecast is not looking too good," he said Friday (March 28). "Warm and windy is a bad combination."

Osborn was proud of the way all of the departments and farmers worked together to fight last week's fires.

"We had a very good response from our neighbors,
he said. "The counties around us came and helped and if they hadn't came, we would have been overwhelmed. We had a lot of farmers who showed up to help too, and the EMS. Everyone pulls together to get it done."

Grant County is in need of rain; however, the county is not under a burn ban right now.

"I personally am very hesitant to do burn bans, because I like it when the farmers actually burn the fuel off," Osborn said. "That way, it helps in the end, because the fuel is not there. When we don't let them burn the fuel builds up and when we do have a fire it is a lot worse."

There are rules for those needing to burn to follow.

"We have rules they have to follow," Osborn said. "They can only burn during the daylight hours and the wind has to be 15 mph or less. They have to call in to the LEC when they do a burn and they have to call back when they are done. Our farmers have been really good about doing all of that."

Anyone who is planning on doing a burn, needs to use caution.

"They need to be careful right now," Osborn said. "because conditions are bad. It doesn't take much for it to take off. That fire Thursday exploded quickly."