Nearly 400,000 Acres Burn As Record Wildfire Sweeps Into Southern Kansas
MEDICINE LODGE, Kan. — The towering fire approached Don Gerstner’s house last week with such fury that there was no time to pack. All he and his wife, Carol, could do was scurry to their Toyota pickup and speed past a row of flaming trees toward the relative safety of a nearby road. When the couple returned, the sturdy old home where they had raised their children had been reduced to a pile of bricks and ashes. Amid the destruction were the ruins of a marble-top coffee table, walnut cabinetry and decades worth of pictures and mementos. Also lost was a beloved English pointer, whose kennel Mr. Gerstner had tried unsuccessfully to reach.
“I’m going to rebuild this house, just exactly like it was,” Mr. Gerstner, 87, a carpenter, said Saturday as he surveyed the destruction. The Gerstners’ home on the outskirts of Medicine Lodge is a mere speck in the nearly 400,000 acres of land that have burned since early last week. The blaze, which started on Tuesday across the state line in Oklahoma and by late Sunday had not been fully contained, is said to be the largest recorded wildfire in Kansas history and has prompted a vast mobilization of firefighters rarely seen in this state.
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“Usually, by the time night has fallen, the fire has laid down and often goes out by itself,” said Eric Ward, a fire-planning specialist with the Kansas Forest Service. But the combination of persistent wind, low humidity and a unique terrain with deep canyons complicated firefighting efforts around Medicine Lodge.
“Much of Kansas, there’s a section of road every mile. You can drive a mile ahead of it and take a line” against the fire, Mr. Ward said. “Down here, there’s a lot of pretty much unbroken country, and the only thing breaking it is the canyons you can’t cross.” Over the weekend, officials were still assessing the extent of the damage, including how many cattle had been killed.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/28/us/record-wildfire-comes-to-kansas-as-do-lifesaving-neighbors.html?_r=0
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