Fire relief starts the long road to recovery

March 15--With a lull in what might soon be called "Fire Season" in Kansas and other parts of the region, farmers and partnering organizations are scrambling to fill in the blanks left behind by some of the largest fires in the state's history.

At last count, the Kansas Adjutant General's Department reported that the Clark County fire is 95 percent contained, and a fire in Rooks County in north-central Kansas is 99 percent contained.

Katie Horner, public affairs director of KAGD, said that so far, 651,576 scorched acres have been tallied from the fires within the last couple of weeks that have stretched across the state in nearly two dozen counties, including Clark, Finney, Gray, Haskell and Lane counties in southwest Kansas. Those fires have destroyed at least 40 homes, ruined bridges and roads, and killed thousands of livestock.

But while total estimates on fire damages and costs to producers are still undetermined, losses of cattle and farm infrastructure in the recent fires have left telltale signs of the widespread devastation.

Agricultural organizations statewide are rallying to assist farmers and landowners in need. In Clark County on Tuesday, a Multi-Agency Resource Center consisting of the Kansas Insurance Department, the Kansas Department of Agriculture, the Kansas Attorney General's Office, the Kansas Department of Children and Family, the Kansas Department of Revenue, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, and the United Way gathered to assist survivors in that area.

The event follows a similar meeting that was held Sunday in Hutchinson, and residents have thus far shown an outpouring of support for those affected by the tragedy.

Area schools are participating in the effort. Satanta High School loaded up an SUV on Friday with donated items from the Satanta community and sent it to Ashland. The high school is slated to send another load this week and is still accepting cash donations. In a Facebook post, residents were urged to call the school at (620) 649-2611 to contribute.

But more than anything, residents can help first and foremost by using caution and avoiding hazardous activities that may cause or exacerbate another fire.

"At this point, we're just assisting survivors and keeping an eye out for the fact that there's still a pretty high fire danger out West," Horner said.

Bill Taldo, emergency management director of Lane County, said hot spots there from a fire that started March 6 are still smoldering and will be for some time.

Taldo reported that strong winds have protracted Lane County's problem with fires even after 18,000 acres burned within the county's borders last week and stretched 39,000 acres farther into Ness and Hodgeman counties.

Still, Taldo said the relief efforts in Lane County already have begun to reverse the damages that have taken place. He explained that the Farm Service Agency implemented a program to educate area residents, and some of the fencing lost is already being replaced.

"The wind erosion is being taken care of, and I think they're getting some hay donations," Taldo said. "We've still had a few more spot fires out in that area, but we've had a couple fires elsewhere in the county."

Even though the fire that started March 6 scorched a huge portion of southern Lane County and left much of the land incapable of burning until it greens again, Taldo said the danger of additional fires is still high, adding that firefighters in the county were out at 6 a.m. Monday contending with a structure fire.

Crops played an interesting role in the fire's spread.

Because spring crops haven't been planted in most parts of the state, the only crop truly affected by the fires was winter wheat planted in September, said Ryan Flickner, senior director of public policy at Kansas Farm Bureau. He explained that even if wheat, which greens this time of year, doesn't burn, it is prone to singe and dry up days or weeks later. That results in crop loss, "but the vast majority of what we're experiencing now is more on the pasture side," Flickner said.

While approximately 50 livestock, mostly cattle, were killed in Lane County, Clark County reportedly lost more than 3,000 head of cattle, a number that is expected to increase as new information comes in.

Flickner said many producers that had time to prepare for the encroaching flames moved their livestock onto the green wheat cropland to improve their chances of survival.

"The Anderson Creek Fire, we know there were a number of tracks of wheat where the fire burned around them because the wheat was green," Flickner said. "A lot of producers ... would open up the gate and put the cattle on the wheat knowing that would be about the only thing that wouldn't burn."

Farmers and ranchers also stand to lose a significant amount of money in fencing replacement. Flickner said it costs approximately $10,000 to rebuild a single mile of fence, adding that areas such as Clark County fence hundreds if not thousands of acres.

"It will certainly take years to rebuild what the fire destroyed in just a matter of hours," he said.

But farmers may receive legislative relief. The Kansas House on Tuesday passed by a 122-0 vote a state sales tax exemption for the purchases of supplies intended for repairing fencing burned in the state's numerous wildfires. The bill has been sent to the Senate and hopes for its passage are high. It closely resembles a bill adopted in 2016 after the Anderson Creek Fire ravaged 400,000 acres in south-central Kansas.

Heather Lansdowne, communications director for the Kansas Department of Agriculture, said the needs of farmers and ranchers in the wake of "the kind of fire we hope we never see again and have never before" are changing every day, but the loss of homes and fencing will continue to necessitate donations.

"We heard hay and feed for quite a while," Lansdowne said. "We heard milk for a while, but we've heard really good results. About every time we say there's a great need, somebody fixes it. I think rebuilding is going to be a significant need for the folks who have lost homes and fences. ... The rebuilding process is going to be significant."

Lansdowne said the KDA's focus has been on recovery, assistance and the expedition of federal assistance to those who need it.

Todd Domer, vice president of communications at the Kansas Livestock Association, said farmers and ranchers learned a lot from the Anderson Creek Fire that burned nearly 400,000 acres in Barber and Comanche counties in March 2016.

"I think about the resiliency of the land and the cattle and the people," Domer said. "We knew the people were tough, and we knew they were resilient down deep, but you don't always know that about how long it's going to take the land to recover, the grass to recover, and how those surviving cattle are going to be in terms of productivity."

Even cattle that didn't die in the fires were and are, in many cases, too traumatized and injured to move comfortably back into the production cycle. John Kellenberger said he and his team of veterinary doctors based at the Ashland Veterinary Center and beyond have assessed thousands of surviving cattle free of charge.

"We're a four-man practice, and we've had multiple veterinarians from K-State and other private practice that have come and helped us," he said. "We've been on pretty much every ranch that had loss ..."

Kellenberger explained that cows with burned utters are in too much pain to let their calves nurse, cows have gone blind due to smoke irritation, and some of the animals have succumbed to "severe lameness" from burned hooves.

Evaluated animals are being euthanized in cases of extremity, when they are "suffering beyond repair," Kellenberger said.

"Devastating is the word that covers it all," he said. "The ranchers that were affected were 100 percent affected, and I have had ranging from low to minimal death loss to an upside of 80 percent death loss."

Kellenberger said the outpouring of assistance from livestock associations, other ranchers and "people that have nothing to do with agriculture" has been wonderful.

"We have hay, we have fencing supplies, we have food, we have bottled water," he said. "Everything is being poured into this community, and not everybody will get thanked."

Contact Mark Minton at [email protected]

Others hoping to contribute to the relief efforts can:

--Visit Kansas Farm Bureau's website, www.kfb.org/firerelief.

--Call the Kansas Livestock Association at (785) 273-5115. Checks can be mailed to the Kansas Livestock Foundation at 6031 SW 37th St., Topeka, KS 66614 with "Fire Relief Fund" written in the memo line.

--For more information on localized donations, contact the Kansas Rural Center at (866) 579-5469, or send an email to [email protected]

Contact Mark Minton at [email protected]

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