Wildfire — Gosper, Nebraska

2022-04-07 to 2022-04-12 · Gosper, Nebraska

Event narrative

A large and historic wildfire tore across parts of Gosper and Furnas counties on this Thursday afternoon-evening, remaining in the regional news headlines for several days while being gradually contained. Fueled by a nasty combination of extreme dryness and severe north-northwest winds frequently gusting 50-60+ MPH, this blaze scorched approximately 35,000 acres along a nearly 22-mile long and mainly 2-4 mile wide swath, making it the largest wildfire in at least many decades within South Central Nebraska. Dubbed the Road 739 Fire, it ignited around 12:30 p.m. CDT seven miles south-southwest of Elwood near the intersection of county Roads 739/420 (where it was determined that a dead tree limb blew onto power lines) and raged south-southeastward over the next several hours to the banks of the Republican River one to two miles west-southwest of Edison, where its forward progress was halted in the early morning hours of Friday the 8th. According to the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), eight residences were destroyed along with as many as 50 outbuildings/minor structures (in addition to many killed/injured livestock, damaged irrigation pivots, fences, etc.). Although no injuries were reported from the actual fire, tragically two traffic incidents involving emergency personnel occurred during the immediate fire response, one resulting in a fatality. In this most notable accident, the Elwood volunteer fire chief was killed and the Phelps County emergency manager seriously injured when the SUV they were riding in collided head-on with a truck hauling water approximately eight miles north of Arapahoe along Highway 283 (visibility was near-zero at the time due to a combination of blowing smoke/dust). In a separate accident, a Farnam volunteer firefighter was injured when the fire truck he was riding on dropped into a hole and overturned in a pasture approximately 11 miles southwest of Elwood. In the immediate aftermath of the fire, several area U.S. and state highways were closed for a time due to either active fire or heavy smoke, including highways: 283, 6/34, 46 and 89. Although the forward progress of the fire was halted within roughly the first 12 hours after it started, it took many more days to fully corral hot spots within the fire perimeter, as even nearly two weeks later the fire as a whole was officially only 80 percent contained. As for the overall fire response, in addition to at least 40 local fire departments from across the state, the following state agencies also deployed personnel for a few to several days: NEMA, Nebraska State Patrol, Nebraska State Fire Marshal and Nebraska Forest Service. In addition, the Nebraska National Guard deployed two UH-60 helicopters for aerial fire suppression (dropping buckets of water on hot spots) along with support vehicles and a 25-person Wildland Taskforce crew. According to the Nebraska Region 17 Emergency Management Coordinator, the extreme and aggressive behavior of the Road 739 fire was unlike anything he had ever encountered, noting that at times those battling the fire could not even see the front of their vehicles due to blowing smoke/dust. But as tragic as the Road 739 Fire was, it could have been even worse, as the tireless work of countless firefighters saved dozens of rural homes and also kept the fire from potentially spreading into the communities of Arapahoe and Edison (the fire got within approximately one mile of both, and an evacuation order was briefly in effect for Edison and nearby rural areas). Please note: Although the Road 739 fire was the largest fire of April 2022 to occur entirely within this South Central Nebraska area, the Road 702 fire that flared up 15 days later (April 22) was actually even larger overall, scorching approximately 44,000 acres including parts of western Furnas County in this local area. However, the majority of the Road 702 Fire focused just west of this coverage area (mainly impacting Red Willow County in the Extreme Southwest Nebraska coverage area).

Wider weather episode

This Thursday marked the second straight day of intense north-northwest winds across South Central Nebraska, but overall a bit worse than the previous day, as most of the daylight hours featured relentless sustained speeds commonly 30-45 MPH and frequent gusts 50-60 MPH (with sporadic higher peak gusts up to 68 MPH). Although for the majority of the 24-county local domain these severe winds and associated areas of blowing dust were the most impactful stories of the day, within Gosper/Furnas counties a large and historic wildfire took center stage during the afternoon and evening, remaining in the regional news headlines for several days while being gradually contained. Fueled by a nasty combination of extreme dryness and the severe winds, this blaze (dubbed the Road 739 Fire) scorched approximately 35,000 acres along a nearly 22-mile long and mainly 2-4 mile wide swath, making it the largest wildfire in at least many decades within South Central Nebraska. According to the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), eight residences were destroyed in the fire, along with as many as 50 outbuildings/minor structures. No injuries were reported from the actual fire, but tragically two traffic accidents involving emergency personnel occurred during the immediate fire response, including one that fatally injured the Elwood volunteer fire chief (for additional details regarding the Road 739 Fire please refer to the associated event narrative). Getting back to the larger-scale wind event that affected the entirety of South Central Nebraska, the highest official peak gusts from local airport sensors included: 63 MPH at Grand Island, 62 MPH in Hastings and 61 MPH at Ord. Per unofficial mesonet stations scattered throughout the area, peak gusts featured: 68 MPH near Cozad, 66 MPH near Red Cloud and Fairfield, and 65 MPH near Phillips and Kearney. There were no known reports of significant wind damage, but the combination of strong gusts and ongoing drought conditions promoted fairly widespread areas of blowing dust, greatly reducing visibility in various locations at least briefly. One of the more notable dust plumes affected the Interstate 80 corridor near Gibbon during the late morning, with highway cameras and traffic flow maps confirming very poor visibility and slow-downs. Sustained speeds finally eased down below 30 MPH (and gusts below 45 MPH) on a consistent basis by around 9 p.m. CDT on the 7th, signaling the end of back-to-back days of higher-end winds (although moderately-windy conditions continued for several more days).

In the mid-upper levels, the main player in the intense winds continued to be a quasi-stationary and powerful/deep closed low churning over the Wisconsin area. At the surface, a nearly co-located intense low pressure center resided over WI during the day, although its central pressure slowly weakened from around 994 millbars to around 1000 millibars. Despite the gradual weakening of this primary surface low, if anything, conditions within the state of Nebraska were even more favorable for high winds than the preceding day. For one thing, the mid-day (18Z) west-to-east pressure gradient across the state was slightly stronger, registering around 17 millibars (ranging from 1011 millibars in far eastern NE to 1028 millibars in the western Panhandle). Furthermore, steep low-level lapse rates allowed efficient downward momentum transfer from aloft during the daylight hours, with wind speeds in the 850-700 millibar layer averaging 50-60 knots (roughly 5 KT higher than on the 6th). The high winds of April 6th-7th were only two of several notably-windy days during April 2022 across South Central Nebraska, as this ended up being the overall-windiest April since at least 1951 (per analysis of Grand Island airport data).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1020057. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.