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South-Central Nebraska farmers picking up the pieces from recent wildfire

Farmers and ranchers in South Central Nebraska are still assessing the damage from a wildfire that tore through the area last week.

“It’s pretty devastating for everyone. That’s for sure.”

Tim Rowe tells Brownfield the fire started near one of his farms last Thursday morning and destroyed fields of corn and bean stover, pasture land and several pivots. “The stubble is gone. The fertilizer is gone.  There’s nothing but bare dirt. We’re still continuing to have high winds and of course that topsoil is still blowing. Like everybody we try hard to not let that happen, but it’s happening.”  

Vern Schutz tells Brownfield some of his 250 cow-calf pairs were in the line of fire and raced to get them to safety. “I don’t know if I can remember because it was such chaos and confusion, but we were trying to get them to a safe spot on a planted wheat field,” he says. “Our neighbor came over and said let’s put them on our pivot of our rye so he cut fences and we ran the mover there.”

He tells says he lost pivots, pastures and some of his herd. “(The insurance company) that the damage was right at $75,000 on our pivot and we didn’t have insurance on our livestock.”

The Nebraska Emergency Management Agency says the fire started Thursday afternoon seven miles southwest of Elwood and burned more than 35,000 acres through Furnas and Gosper Counties.

Fire officials say the fire is mostly contained despite a few hotspots.