Firefighters trying to snuff out the biggest wildfire in Kansas’ history are getting help from military helicopters — and a potential assist from looming rain or snow.
Four UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters from the Kansas National Guard were deployed on Saturday in an effort to contain the persistent prairie blazes that since Tuesday last week have charred at least 1,600km2 in Oklahoma and southern Kansas.
Six homes have been destroyed and some livestock has been lost, the Kansas Adjutant General’s Office said. Three bridges and one railroad trestle have also been damaged or destroyed. No serious human injuries have been reported.
At least two of the helicopters have 2,500-liter buckets that are used to dump water from local sources onto the flames, office spokesman Ben Bauman said. The National Guard also contributed a fuel tanker truck and another ground support vehicle.
Firefighters focused on the area southwest of Wichita in Butler County, where only 15 percent of the blaze that has scorched 1,106km2 of the county has been contained, Kansas Incident Management Team spokeswoman Darcy Golliher said.
The National Weather Service said the area where the fire has raged, which borders Oklahoma, might get 0.25cm to 0.64cm of rain or snow yesterday morning.
Kansas Forest Service spokeswoman Shawna Hartman said slightly windier conditions prevailed on Saturday compared with the previous day, adding that while she expects the forecast precipitation to add welcome moisture, “it really will not do anything to the fire that is actively burning.”
However, Hartman said: “We do not anticipate the perimeter [of the fire] increasing at all.”
The prospect of relief from rain might offer little solace to 87-year-old Don Gerstner, a Korean War veteran, who along with his wife, Carol, lost their home near Medicine Lodge to the fire after the two narrowly escaped it.
Gerstner said he looked out his kitchen window on Wednesday last week and saw what he described as a fast-approaching “wall of fire.”
He yelled for his wife to get her pocketbook and the couple fled with their dogs, at times driving through flames to make their getaway.
The couple watched from afar as the fire consumed their home of 54 years, much of the structure built with bricks from the county’s old courthouse.
Now facing the task of starting over, Carol Gerstner said: “At our age, it is just hard to get used to something different.”
However, her husband said he has seen worse.
“It is not as bad as Korea,” he laughed.
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