Thanksgiving Wildland Fires

Thanksgiving of 2017 will be one that the folks of this county likely won't forget.

At about 1 p.m., pages went out to local volunteer firefighters that a fire was burning north of Malta. A few minutes later, more pages went out reporting four fires south of town.

The fire north of Malta was quickly extinguished, but the main fire southeast of town (near Content Road and Black Coulee Road) would burn for at least the next six hours, scorching a swath of land estimated at 10-miles long and, at its widest, 2.5 miles across.

Phillips County Volunteer Fire Chief Michael Flatt said the fire was likely caused by a vehicle dragging something (though he said the theory was speculation at this point.) Couple the sparks made by the vehicle with a record high temperature on the day of 73 degrees and winds racing across the prairie from 20 to 40 miles per hour, and the Thanksgiving fire took off in a hurry.

County firefighters from Malta, Saco and Whitewater and were joined by the Valley County Long-Run Fire Department, a unit from Bowdoin and at least 100 farmers, ranchers and other residents in the county to help fight the fire.

"There was a pile of people out there fighting the fire," Chief Flatt said. "It was a great response by firefighters, but the response by the community and the farmers and ranchers was huge. There was a ton of people and there were people from town who aren't farmers and aren't ranchers out there trying to help out."

Chief Flatt said that the wind dying down later in the afternoon helped slow the fire, but again pointed to the fast action of the people of Phillips County in getting the fire put out.

"When it started, I thought we were going to be out there all night," he said. "Hat's off to the people of the community and the surrounding farmers and ranchers that dove in and helped out."

Throughout the ordeal, water tenders drove back and forth from the city to the fire to provide water to fight the grass fire. Chief Flatt said that the strange weather on the day continued into the night and shortly after the fire was put out that it started raining.

"That was a blessing because I am sure there were areas and coulees that were still hot that could have potentially done something the next day, but those rains really helped us out," said Chief Flatt.

Thankfully, no one was hurt during the fire and no building were touched. Two large wooden crosses sitting on Lorraine Watson's property (formally the Donald and Gary Coffman place), burned in the fire and a third still remains standing. Early reports are that Watson is looking to have the crosses replaced in the future.