O'Neill Fire Chief Speaks At
Legislature Committee Last Friday

CORN FIELD FIRE  The O'Neill Fire Department as well as Spencer and Lynch responded to a fire 10 miles northeast of O'Neill on Monday afternoon. The fire was started by an exhaust off of a vehicle.

 Courtesy of Steve Liewer and the Omaha World Herald

 and Terry Miles Holt County Independent

A select group of fire chiefs from across the state were on hand at the Nebraska State Capitol last Friday to speak  at a hearing of the Nebraska Legislature's Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee in Lincoln. Included in the list was O'Neill Fire Chief Roger Miller. 

The committee is considering Legislative Resolution 156, a proposed study of the impact and increased frequency and intensity of wildfires in Nebraska, and the sufficiency of the fire fighting response in the state.

John Erixson, director of the Nebraska Forest Service, told the committee that in the first 30 years after the state began tracking wildfires in 1964, only twice did fire consume more than 100,000 acres.

In the 30 years since, it has happened seven times — topped by the nightmare year of 2012, when nearly 500,000 acres burned in north and northwest Nebraska.

The second-worst year was 2022, with 279,099 acres scorched during another hot, dry year. Three volunteers died in the firefighting effort.

This year has provided little relief. More than 179,000 acres have burned, mostly in April. And the year is not over. The increase in fires coincides with a decrease in the pool of volunteers as the rural population shrinks.

“The decline in volunteerism has affected us in Nebraska,” said Nathan Flowers, chief of the Gering Fire Department. “As hard as it is now to recruit and retain volunteer firefighters, it's going to be much harder in five years.”

Wesley Hock is the fire chief in Holbrook, a village of 200 people 35 miles east of McCook. His small department fought three major wildfires last year — including the Mile Marker 26 fire, which burned 100 square miles.

“I had crews that were on the fires for three weeks. They were tired,” Hock told the committee. “We just didn't have enough personnel. We had so many fires burning across the state, we were just spread too thin.”

In speaking with Chief Miller he responded that he informed the committee about the situation pertinent to this part of the state and the wild land fires the area departments have had to fight in the past years. "We have had a couple larger incidents in our area requiring brining in help from our mutual aid district to combat these fires. We definitely rely on communities close to us for support in getting large fires contained. A year or so ago I looked into forming a local task force of firemen that would be willing to travel outside of our mutual aid districts. We had good response from our volunteers in O'Neill as well as Atkinson, Stuart, Spencer, Lynch, Chambers and Ewing in putting the task force together. If our emergency manager gets the call for help from other agencies we can usually get a group of area fire fighters to respond. We sent trucks west to Halsey and Sargent as well as the fire north of Burwell in the last year. The state has the trained volunteers to help with these fires but like any volunteer getting them away from their job is tough and they should be compensated by the state when they are called in to help.

The fire chiefs identified needs to help with the situations faced by firefighters in the state. Items in need were more and better radios operating on a dedicated frequency, to ease communications among departments and with aerial units. State reimbursement for fire fighting equipment and gear.

The creation of an intrastate fire compact to make it easier for departments in one part of the state to help those in another would help as well.

Sen. Tom Brewer, who chaired the hearing, said he hopes the Legislature will act next year to speed aid to strapped rural fire departments.

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