Initially the fire was 40 miles long and 5 miles wide, but high winds averaging 30 mph and gusts up to 65 mph increased its path.
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The wildfire killed off large amounts of eastern red cedar trees – which he says are a problem for anyone who lives in Barber or Comanche counties.
Ben Bauman, director of public affairs for the Kansas Department of the Adjutant General, said in a statement early Thursday that the fire was under control in Comanche County. One home was lost Wednesday night, but the owner wasn’t home.
A smoke smell was also reported across the region earlier this week; several people used social media to report the odor across the area.
She said it’s one thing to be on the ground and see the flames or even hear the hundreds of thousands of acres burned, but to see blackened land out of every window on a helicopter makes the size more clear.
A smaller fire has burned about 15 square miles of grassland in Wheeler County.
Smoke from wildfires in central Kansas were visible in Wichita, Kansas, on Wednesday, March 24, 2016.
Hundreds of firefighters were battling a wildfire Thursday that spread from Oklahoma to Kansas has burned at least 280 square miles in one rural southern Kansas county. “It hits dry grass and away it goes”.
“I think at this point they’re just in the evaluation stage”, says Scarlett Hagins, KLA’s communications program manager.
The National Weather Service says wind gusts of up to 30 miles per hour are expected to last from Friday morning through the afternoon.
The fire started in Oklahoma on Tuesday and moved into Kansas, with strong winds on Wednesday making it eight times bigger, forcing voluntary evacuations in rural prairie towns that ended as winds died down on Thursday.
Air support has been called in to help fight the fire in both Kansas and Oklahoma.
With conditions “not as intense” and more crews arriving, firefighters were able to “get out there and really attack the fire” on Thursday, said Shawna Hartman, the spokesman for the Kansas Forest Service.
On Thursday, farmers and ranchers from Kingman County loaded up a truck of round bales to send to fellow ranchers in Barber County. Authorities say the blaze went around the Barber County town of about 2,000 residents, and plans are being made to return the patients to the facility Thursday. As of Thursday, it had consumed 620 square miles of mostly farmland and ranchland in the two states.
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The wildfire prompted Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback to declare a State of Disaster Emergency, in order to channel state assistance to the local communities.
