TRENTON, Neb. — The fire burned against the northwest wind as it crossed the grassland.
Two crews on all-terrain vehicles ignited the field with propane torches.
Crew members Anthony Meguire, Theresa Schnoor and Robert Seybold followed the flames, working back and forth from east to west to ignite vegetation and keep the fire moving.
This was a prescribed burn, purposely set and herded across landscapes to reduce old, dry vegetation and non-native plants and encourage the growth of prairie-native greenery.
Dozens of these burns are conducted on thousands of acres across Nebraska each year with little notice, but a few mitigating factors and shifting winds turned this one deadly.
Five other people spread out from Meguire, Schnoor and Seybold to contain the fire. One created fire breaks along the east and west boundaries with a tractor pulling a tilling disc.
Two drove ATVs and worked the south and west boundaries with shovels. Two others on foot worked the east edge with shovels.
As the fire reached the barbed-wire fence at the north end of the field, the wind shifted to the southwest. A large, black dust devil crossed the northwest corner of the grassland.
The wind-whipped fire crossed the fence. Meguire, Schnoor and Seybold followed. So did the two shovelers on foot.
Flames erupted 30 feet into the air. The shovelers ran.
Behind the wall of fire, Meguire, Schnoor and Seybold were trapped. Schnoor, 46, and Seybold, 40, suffered fatal injuries. Meguire, 36, was critically burned.
After an 11-week investigation, Deputy State Fire Marshal Ryan Sylvester ruled the deaths and injuries accidental and blamed them on changing weather conditions.
As this fall's prescribed burn season approaches, more questions are being raised by landowners planning to use fire to manage their properties and by volunteer fire department chiefs who issue burn permits and set the conditions for prescribed burns.
"We have to prove that we're taking all the safety precautions,'' said Sandy Benson of Bassett, Neb., a Northern Plains Land Trust wildlife biologist who uses fire on land. "We always pay extra attention to safety, but it's even more important now."
Benson said Nebraskans in many parts of the state may smell smoke in the air from prescribed burns — commonly referred to as controlled burns — after the first hard frost of fall. A burn is planned, for example, at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in western Nebraska before mid-November.
Autumn's climate in the Midlands favors the burns, Benson said.
Warm, dry fall days are ideal because the shorter daylight hours push peak temperatures back to about 2 p.m., and the relative humidity begins to increase as the afternoon progresses, Benson said.
"Any burning done this fall will be done with that in mind," she said.
Benson said the details of last spring's fire deaths northwest of Trenton will be closely studied by the dozen or so prescribed burn associations across Nebraska.
The fatal prescribed burn was conducted April 28 on a 128-acre field farmed by James Faimon of Stratton, Neb., to reinvigorate grassland and wildlife habitat.
The Trenton Volunteer Fire Department was aware of the plan. Burn organizers requested that Trenton firefighters be on hand, but the fire district's board had a policy of not allowing equipment to be taken out on a standby basis because of the cost. Three other area fire departments also declined.
Seybold was issued a verbal permit to conduct the burn the morning of the accident.
A burn plan filed with the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service required a north wind of 5 to 15 mph, relative humidity of 25 percent to 75 percent and an air temperature of 40 to 80 degrees.
Sylvester, the investigator, wrote that actual weather conditions were "marginal at best," with gusts ranging from 17 to 28 mph during the 2½ hours in which the burn was conducted, before it went awry. The relative humidity dropped to 21 percent — below the minimum — during the burn.
Some equipment required to be on site included two 200-gallon water tanks on vehicles, four two-way radios, four ATVs with sprayers and a 1,000-gallon water tank.
Sylvester found three ATVs without sprayers on site (but two had utility trailers), a tractor with a disc and the big water tank.
Sylvester said there was no evidence of a pre-burn briefing.
"The burn was conducted with a loose organizational structure without pre-assigned duties or areas of responsibility," he wrote. "Some participants arrived ... after the burn had been started."
There was no evidence participants wore the fire-resistant clothing normally used in wildland fire suppression by anyone helping conduct the burn, Sylvester said.
Seybold was considered the "burn boss," though Faimon was listed on the plan as in charge, Sylvester said. Seybold owned the grassland north of the fence where the flames jumped.
Sylvester found water bottles and unopened beer cans in coolers inside a two-wheel trailer attached to a burned-out ATV on Seybold's land. An empty beer can south of the fence matched the lot numbers on the cans in the cooler.
Sylvester said that while he met with Hitchcock County Sheriff Bryan Leggott in Trenton before driving to the farm, one of the participants came to the office and requested a breath test for alcohol.
The participant said he wanted to prove he had not been drinking. Sylvester administered the test. Results showed no alcohol.
Sylvester said Seybold and Meguire told medical staff at McCook Community Hospital, where they were taken for initial treatment, that they had consumed alcohol.
A tractor driver came across the injured Seybold and Meguire near the fence when driving to disc around the flames, Sylvester said.
Seybold told the driver — who could see Schnoor's body in the burning field — to call 911.
Schnoor's body was found 89 feet from the burned ATV and 150 feet from the fence. An autopsy indicated she died of smoke and soot inhalation. A toxicology screening showed alcohol in her system at the time of death, Sylvester said.
Seybold died 20 days later of complications from his burns.
The fire was finally controlled when the winds shifted again. Flames died down, allowing the tractor to disc around the site and extinguish the burn.
Benson, who was not involved in the Trenton burn, said she has been asked often about what impact the southwest Nebraska deaths would have on using fire to manage land.
"I tell them that it was bad for everybody concerned," she said, "but that it also was a wake-up call to everyone to pay attention to safety."
Contact the writer:
402-444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com
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