ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first story recapping the debriefing of the recent fires in the area Monday afternoon with the Seward County Commission. This story discusses Interim Fire Chief Braden Steckel’s timeline of the events of the fires on and after Pancake Day. Future stories will talk about the efforts of other county departments to get the blazes under control.
This year’s Pancake Day celebration will be remembered not only for the festivities in Liberal, but also for what occurred as those events were concluding that Tuesday afternoon.
Areas surrounding Liberal were caught up in fires which damaged much land, homes and other property. Monday, Seward County officials debriefed the commission and the public about those fires.
Interim Fire Chief Braden Steckel said it was shortly after lunch when county firefighters were asked by officials in Beaver County, Okla., to assist with a fire there.
“While we were getting staffing in place and seeing where we were that day, Texas County had a fire,” he said. “Later, Stevens County communicated with us they were headed to Texas County to help, so if we could stick around our county to help their county, we can do that.”
Shortly after 1:30 p.m. Feb. 17, Steckel said his firefighters were paged to help with burns near Tyrone, Okla.
“That was the fire that was headed straight for Tyrone,” he said. “We arrived on scene to help mitigate that incident. We were able to get a handle on that with them.”
Directly following that, Steckel said the Stevens County fire was making its way toward Seward County.
“Right after we left Tyrone, it was probably in Seward County,” he said.
Shortly before 3 p.m., Steckel said additional units from the Seward County Fire Department still in the county were headed to the county’s west end to help track down a fire there.
“We came in from Tyrone to the southwest corner of Seward County,” he said. “We found that fire at Road B and south of Road 3 and started hitting it there. At that point, tankers started coming in. Disks started coming in to help us start choking that down.”
This fire, Steckel said, was eventually stopped at Road 3 and Road C, and he said the main concern for all that day was the safety of life.
“We had homes in that area,” he said. “With the wind shifts, this was headed directly toward Liberal.”
Shortly after 3:30, an additional fire became active in Seward County, and about 15 minutes later, a page went out for a fire on Andrew Lane in eastern Seward County.
Firefighters from the City of Liberal and Haskell County, as well as the Johnson County Task Force and the City of Sublette later came to the Andrew Lane fire.
Yet another fire would erupt on River Road east of Arkalon Park, and Steckel said the City of Liberal utilized one of the county’s fire trucks to assist with that fire.
This was shortly after 4 p.m., and by 4:15, that fire was at the bottom of the river. Shortly after 4:30 p.m., Steckel said a plane was en route to Andrew Lane, with crews from Plains soon to follow. Shortly after 5 p.m., the Kansas Forest Service, along with the Johnson County Task Force arrived there.
Shortly before 6 p.m., Steckel said the fire at Road C and Road 3 was knocked down.
“The same thing that happened west of Tyrone was happening in Seward County,” he said. “A lot of the fire we were dealing with was in corn stubble.”
Steckel, though, said he was not keeping up with what was happening that day in the corn stubble.
“You get it halfway shut down, and corn husks would blow 100 yards out in front and start complete new heads of the fire,” he said. “We were still working on containment completely on that west fire at that time. That was when we logged progress stopped at 3 and C, so we still had to dedicate units west of town.”
Shortly before 6:30 p.m., Steckel said one address had been burned, and another was actively burning. It was shortly before 7:30 p.m. when two of the county’s fire units departed the Road C and Road 3 fire to assist at the river fire.
“They got back in there and helped protect the house,” he said.
Shortly after 8:30 pm., help from Dickinson County arrived at Andrew Lane, and Steckel said throughout the night, Johnson County workers cleared from there.
“At 2:31 that Wednesday morning at Road C and 3, that fire was declared out,” he said. “The rest of our Seward County units went to the river valley at 8 o’clock that morning.”
On Wednesday, Feb. 18, Steckel said Seward County Road and Bridge went back to the river bottom, and SCFD’s tanker was released that night.
“He went back out there,” he said. “Johnson County and the Forest Service got back out there at 10:41 Wednesday morning.”
More help came that Wednesday from Mitchell County, and aerial operations were completed. Shortly after 7 p.m., Seward County units were relieved from the scene.
“We got enough resources on scene we could get our guys some rest,” he said. “The next morning, Seward County went back out there at 8:54. National Guard arrived at 11:05. Ford County Emergency Management arrived on scene at 12:34 on the 19th, and at 17:59, Seward County units cleared from scene on the 20th. Sherman County cleared from scene at 8:29 from the overnight standby, and throughout the days following that event, we had units patrolling the area to make sure we didn’t have any flare ups.”
Steckel estimated total time patrolling was 15 hours, and shortly after 6:15 p.m. Feb. 24, fires were declared 100 percent contained, with all land released to owners.
“We spent 76 hours and 26 minutes on the Andrew Lane fire,” he said. “In a straight span of time, Seward County spent 40 hours and 30 minutes on that scene. They were actively on shift for at least 39 hours and nine minutes without sleep. From this, especially with helping with Tyrone and the southwest corner of the county, our tactics are playing off as far as actively fighting fire. From these, there needs to be some better pre-planning with our organization integrating with other organizations so when we aren’t available to release all our units, we can help bridge that gap.”
Steckel said it was unfortunate the county was dealing with multiple fires at the same time, and this affected efficiency of fire fighting efforts.
“We had several fires happen at the same time, and unfortunately, we couldn’t get all the help we needed to when we first needed to because there were fires going on everywhere,” he said.
