Panhandle firefighters are once again headed to the front lines of a wildfire fight, but this time in southwestern Nebraska south of North Platte.
More than a thousand acres of land has burned in the hills southeast of Wellfleet, with more than 20 fire departments already on scene of the blaze that broke out Tuesday.
Gering Fire Chief Nathan Flowers tells KNEB News a ‘strike team’ of two type-six engines from Gering, and one each from the Banner County, Morrill and Minatare Fire Departments was scheduled to be on the scene this morning to battle somewhat familiar conditions.
“There’s a lot of red cedar trees, a lot of inaccessible terrain from those canyons, something that our people are pretty comfortable with due to the fires we (had) in the Wildcat Hills. So, we’ll be sending twelve firefighters in total for the day (Thursday). and we’ll see what the weekend holds,” said Flowers
Flowers says it’s not unusual to have grass fires in that area of the state this time of year, but this blaze is already quite large.
He tells us he hopes the early-season fire is not a sign of things to come as we move into spring and summer.
