Controlled fires expose flaws

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ONLY IN THE WORLD-HERALD
Two weeks ago, shifting winds whipped a grassland fire over a firebreak in southwest Nebraska, killing a 46-year-old woman and critically burning two men.

The tragedy involved a growing fraternity of Iowa and Nebraska landowners and others using fire to rid grazing land of unwanted trees and to reinvigorate grassland and wildlife habitat.

The incident was part of a spring run of fires in Nebraska's dry southwest that exposed holes in the thin line of volunteers who fight wildfires — and then chase after the rare prescribed burn that escapes its handlers.

Lack of manpower and money were the primary reasons no trained firefighters were on hand April 28 when flames engulfed 46-year-old Theresa Schnoor of Trenton, Neb. The State Fire Marshal's Office is investigating the death.

Some rural fire departments send crews to stand by at prescribed burns — commonly referred to as controlled burns — as part of their training, but neither Nebraska nor Iowa requires their presence.

State Sen. Annette Dubas of Fullerton held hearings on the issue of prescribed burns last year and found no need to have volunteer firefighters at every event, so long as the procedures set in state law are followed.

“It was very clear to us that volunteer firefighters are already overextended, and imposing more training or regulation on them could be a disincentive to volunteering,'' said Joselyn Luedtke, an aide to Dubas. “The problem didn't seem to be that there was a need for more firefighters on the ground, but a need for landowners to develop and follow prescribed burn plans.''

There were no indications that the Trenton-area burn would turn tragic, said former State Sen. Tom Baker, who watched the operation start and later was the first emergency medical technician on the scene.

“It was a nice day. They were following the burn plan, and there was a big fire guard disked around the fields,'' he said.

Nebraska law gives local fire chiefs the authority to issue burn permits and to set conditions for prescribed burns. State Fire Marshal John Falgione said Nebraska's diverse landscape makes it necessary that local fire chiefs control the activity.

In the past, the Trenton Fire Department had firefighters on the scene of prescribed burns — such as the one that killed Schnoor — for training and precautionary reasons, said Fire Chief Tom Hovey.

The district's board of directors eliminated that practice a few years ago, said Baker, a board member.

“It got expensive taking people away from work — we're all volunteers — plus, with the cost of fuel, we just couldn't keep doing these things,'' Baker said. “We decided that if they needed us, they'd call us.''

The 15-member Trenton Rural Fire Department long ago burned through its annual fuel budget. Its newest grass rig was destroyed — even the tires burned — in a four-mile-long wildfire that 10 days ago traveled to the edge of Swanson Reservoir.

Up the road in Stratton, the rural fire chief there plans to wait until it snows again before issuing more permits for burning grassland, brush piles or even dilapidated houses and barns.

“Enough is enough,'' said Stratton Fire Chief Earl Denio, whose department does not staff prescribed burns. “I'm tired of fighting these fires.''

Attitudes toward prescribed burns differ greatly across rural volunteer fire departments, said Sandy Benson of Bassett, Neb., a Northern Prairies Land Trust wildlife biologist who uses fire on land.

Benson said some fire departments embrace the practice and use prescribed burning to raise money via donations from landowners. Other departments are leery, but generally issue permits. Some adamantly oppose the burns and refuse to issue permits.

Prescribed burns can be an economical and cost-effective tool to manage grasslands, she said, but people need to use the tool safely, even if that means canceling a burn.

“One of the hardest things ... to do is to have everyone on site and then call it off because conditions aren't safe,” she said. “But that's what we do because every mistake just sets us back.”

Earlier this month, firefighters in two vehicles from Crawford, Neb., watched a prescribed burn on private grassland north of the Pine Ridge ranching and tourist town. The fire was conducted by Charles Butterfield, a rangeland management professor at Chadron State College.

“They stood back, but when the wind shifted they were thrilled to come in and squirt water,'' said Butterfield, who has been conducting prescribed burns in northwest Nebraska for about 20 years.

“I like having volunteer fire departments on the scene. They can sit there with their trucks turned off, drinking water and eating cookies, but if they're needed, they're on site.”

The fire that killed Schnoor escaped from a burn to improve wildlife habitat on about 300 acres of federal Conservation Reserve Program grassland northwest of Trenton. Schnoor was part of the burn crew. The two men who were injured, Robert Seybold, 40, and Anthony Meguire, 36, of Trenton, are being treated in Lincoln.

Many of Nebraska's recent wildfires occurred in the state's southwest corner, which has been hotter and drier than elsewhere in the state.

It's part of the same weather and fire pattern that has plagued the West since last fall. Southwest Nebraska is on the northern edge of a dry region extending south across the western regions of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Denio said the combination of extremely low humidity, high temperatures and moisture-sucking wind is a recipe for fire on tinder-dry grassland anywhere in the Plains.

“You may have a plan, but once a fire gets started, you can't just tell it when to stop,'' Denio said.

Rural Nebraska firefighters fought 261 wildfires through April compared with 208 during the same four months a year ago. Over the past decade, an average 1,110 wildfires a year burned 36,383 acres annually, according to the Nebraska Forest Service. The totals regularly place Nebraska in the top half of Western states in the number of fires and acres burned.

Even humid and wet Iowa isn't immune. Iowans respond to an average of 18,000 grass fires each spring and twice that many in the fall, said Iowa Fire Marshal Ray Reynolds, a volunteer firefighter in Indianola.

Denio's rural Stratton firefighters have been called to 20 wildfires so far this year. They fought six all of last year.

Sparks from a passing train set seven to 10 fires along an eight-mile stretch that rural firefighters contained to a four-mile-long zone that burned from the tracks to Swanson Reservoir. Flames also threatened a Girl Scout camp.

The reservoir fire was the first time in Denio's memory that all Stratton volunteers were able to respond to a fire call.

“All the rigs were out of the barn,'' he said.

Ninety-seven percent of all Nebraska firefighters are volunteers serving their community, said Don Westover, rural fire protection coordinator for the Nebraska Forest Service.

Hovey, the Trenton fire chief, said he can't ask volunteers to take time off their jobs to sit at a prescribed burn, although he thinks it would be safer for people and property if fire crews were on the scene.

“People don't think much of grass fires, but we've had some pretty big ones,'' he said. “You can get trapped real easy.''

Contact the writer:

402-444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com

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