While Friday’s grass fires in Lyon County remain under investigation, the activity areawide points up the need for preparedness at both the personal and agency levels.
That’s the thought of Lyon County Emergency Management Director Jarrod Fell after grass fires likely charred hundreds of acres, sent two people to Newman Regional Health for possible smoke inhalation and damaged at least one home and several outbuildings.
Fell, other county officials and fire department administrators have been focusing on the need for landowners to both check forecasts and take extra steps to make sure grass burns from several days prior are indeed put out — if nothing else, to limit the rekindle risk. Conditions like Friday’s, involving a combination of dry grasses, very low humidity levels, high temperatures near 80 degrees and wind gusts above 60 mph in many places made rekindles likely, even with prudent action by landowners.
Even with the amount of fire activity Friday, Fell says the overall situation could have been worse had it not been for mutual aid agreements at the local and state levels.
In Lyon County, the worst incident developed around 4:30 pm in the 1600 block of Road V-5, about four miles northwest of Neosho Rapids and seven miles east of Emporia. That fire eventually ran around five miles northeast to Roads 200 and X, about seven miles southwest of Reading, and damaged a home and several outbuildings in the 1700 block of Road 175. Two people went to Newman Regional Health with possible smoke inhalation. The fire and related smoke also forced the closure of Interstate 35 and US Highway 50 between Road U and the Coffey County line. Lyon County Emergency Communications issued a rare “all units go available” call to respond to that fire.
Sunday’s fire danger should be relatively mild, but the National Weather Service has announced fire weather watches for all area counties Monday. For Lyon and most surrounding counties, the watch goes from 12-8 pm. For the exceptions, Chase and Greenwood counties, the watch goes from 12-10 pm. High temperatures will be in the mid- to upper 70s, with a lot of dried vegetation, relative humidity levels at or below 25 percent and northwesterly winds anywhere from 15-35 mph.
Stay with KVOE, KVOE.com and KVOE social media for updates.
10:45 am Saturday:
Significant grass fire activity from Friday in Lyon County is under investigation, and that investigative work may well take major steps forward in the next few days.
Emergency Management Director Jarrod Fell says more information will likely come to light once drones can get airborne. Emporia Fire and the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office will work together on the investigation.
That statement follows an exhaustive afternoon and evening of firefighting work Friday as extreme to catastrophic fire danger materialized in several locations, both in Lyon and surrounding counties. For Lyon County, the area that triggered the heaviest response started in the 1600 block of Road V around 4:30 pm and was finally contained near Roads 200 and X, or about five miles away, by 9 pm. Two people from that scene were taken to Newman Regional Health for possible smoke inhalation. At least one home and several outbuildings in the 1900 block of Road 175 were damaged. The fire and related smoke also forced a brief closure of Interstate 35 and US Highway 50 between Road U and the Coffey County line.
Emporia Fire also had to return to 949 Road 212 for a fire after a previous out-of-control burn destroyed a shed Tuesday. It is currently unclear whether that was due to a rekindle or other causes.
Significant fire activity was reported elsewhere as well.
*Fires in Coffey County triggered temporary closures of Interstate 35 from the Lyon to Osage county lines as well as Kansas Highway 58 near LeRoy.
*Greenwood County had five separate brush fires, including one near the Lyon County line and another east of Hamilton, along with two structure fires. Greenwood County Fire Chief Glen Collinge says a downed power line near Severy led to barn damage, but the building was saved by Eureka City Fire. A grass fire went into a shop building near Fall River, destroying the building and two vehicles.
*Wabaunsee County had two major fires of note, one that started near the Lyon County line north of Allen and another that threatened Lake Wabaunsee to the point where deputies issued an evacuation order. No injuries were reported with either incident and Lake Wabaunsee residents were allowed to return by late Friday evening. Damage reports are pending.
Fires areawide were largely driven by winds of anywhere from 50 to nearly 80 mph winds, but low humidity levels, ample amounts of dry grass and temperatures in the 70s were all contributing factors.
Separately, power is returning areawide after widespread outages Friday. At one point early Friday afternoon, there were close to 4,000 Evergy outages areawide — with over 3,000 outages in and immediately around Emporia. Less than 30 outages remain areawide, with less than 10 customers offline in Emporia.
There was also notable structural damage:
*Roof peeled off a store in Burlington
*Unspecified structural damage to a commercial building in Eureka
*Outbuilding roofs damaged near Hamilton
Saturday saw a pair of reported rekindles between 7-7:30 am, including one in the 1900 block of Road 170 outside the Lyon County Rural Water District 4 standpipe. There is currently no indication of damage to the standpipe. The other developed in the 1900 block of Road 175, apparently getting into some hay bales.
Lyon County residents with structural damage from Friday’s fire activity are asked to call the Lyon County Emergency Communications non-emergency phone number at 620-343-4225.
Stay with KVOE, KVOE.com and KVOE social media for updates.
