Wildfire — Red Willow, Nebraska

2022-04-22 to 2022-04-29 · Red Willow, Nebraska

Event narrative

A significant wildfire, which began in Decatur County, Kansas and moved into Furnas County, Nebraska, eventually crossed into Red Willow County, Nebraska. The fire primarily burned across rural eastern Red Willow County, but it did cross over Highways 6/34 in the northeastern part of the county, as well as Highway 89 in the southeastern part of the county. A multi-mission aircraft from Colorado mapped the fire and showed it to have burned an area 28 miles long across 44,024 total acres, putting the number of acres burned in Red Willow County at around 28,000, with 15,000 in Furnas County, NE and 1,000 in Decatur County, KS also burned. Resources from all over were deployed to help with this fire, including 3 Nebraska Air National Guard Blackhawk Helicopters and a Type 1 National Incident Management Team. Total personnel exceeded 100 at times. In addition, a NWS Incident Meteorologist (IMET) was deployed to this fire, the first deployment of an NWS IMET in our forecast area's history. Fighting the fire was difficult due to the rural/terrain area it was in, as well as persistent blowing dust. One fatality occurred with this fire as a retired fire chief was overcome by smoke and fire after the vehicle left the road on Friday, April 22nd during conditions of poor visibility from smoke and dust. An additional 5 injuries were also reported with fire fighters battling this blaze. Temporary evacuations were issued for Bartley and Indianola.

Wider weather episode

A significant weather system impacted the High Plains throughout the day on April 22nd and into the early morning hours of April 23rd. This weather system was not only a prolific wind producer, which led to many reports of high wind and wind damage, but also dust storm conditions and several large fires to occur. The largest fire burned 28,000 acres in eastern Red Willow County, and continued to burn through the 29th before being extinguished. During the afternoon and early evening hours, storms began to form along a dryline across northwestern Kansas and southwestern Nebraska. These storms primarily produced large hail with a few instances of damaging thunderstorm winds. Later in the evening a line of storms or a quasi-linear convective system (QLCS), developed over eastern Colorado, spreading east across northwest Kansas and southwest Nebraska during the overnight hours. These storms produced thunderstorm wind gusts and thunderstorm wind damage.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1023013. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.