Nebraska Has Been On Fire And Nobody's Talking About It. Over 900,000 Acres Have Been Torched Due To The One Of The Largest Wildfires In US History

Nebraska Examiner- U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Monday toured the destruction left behind by the Morrill Fire. She was joined by several state leaders, including Gov. Jim Pillen, Sens. Deb Fischer, Pete Ricketts and 3rd District Rep. Adrian Smith.

The visit comes as fire crews have nearly reached containment on the Morrill Fire, the largest wildfire in Nebraska’s history. Nearly 200 fire personnel were still stationed on that fire as of Monday afternoon. The fire has blackened at least 632,029 acres across five Nebraska counties: Morrill, Garden, Grant, Arthur and Keith. The wildfire ignited on March 12, and about two days later, Pillen said the cause was “electrical” in nature and possibly started from power lines being blown over.

Crews are also nearly done with containing the Cottonwood Fire that’s burned around 128,289 acres between Lincoln and Dawson counties. The cause of that fire has yet to be disclosed, but about 262 people are still working to bring the fire under control. As of Monday afternoon, it was 96% contained.

The largest wildfire in Nebraska history just ripped through the heart of America's beef country and our timelines and news cycles are full of March Madness brackets, Iran war updates, and whatever the celebrity outrage cycle landed on this week. (I see you Chappelle Roan)

Real talk, I've asked people all weekend if they've heard about the "crazy fires in Nebraska" and nobody has had a clue what I'm talking about.

I just spent 20 minutes trying to search for news sources to cite and the only things registering that aren't over 6 days old are from local Nebraska news networks themselves.

And there really isn't much video available besides what I posted at the top here. And this- 

Kind of crazy.

The Morrill Fire alone- sparked by a downed power line in high winds, consumed 642,000 acres by itself. That single fire surpassed the previous record for acres burned in Nebraska across an entire year. And there are four fires total.

All burning simultaneously across western and central Nebraska, all chewing through some of the most critical agricultural land in the country. When it was raging hardest, firefighters showed up to find what looked like a sunrise on the horizon at 2am.

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The good news is the four major fires are all almost 100% contained now. 

WOWT Omaha - As the Morrill and Cottonwood fires near 100 percent containment Tuesday, fire managers will begin demobilizing some equipment and personnel throughout the week.

Firefighters will return to their home units before they are sent out to help with wildfires in other parts of the country.

Both fires remain staffed with the resources needed to attain additional containment and respond to changing fire conditions. Crews are also responding to smoke reports in the fire area received by local 911 dispatchers, reducing the workload on volunteer firefighters.

The very, VERY bad news, is that we just lost nearly a million acres of incredibly valuable grass and farmland. 

Wildfire Today - The vast majority of the Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge has burned in the Morrill Fire, infrared flyover maps show. The refuge is located in the Nebraska Sandhills, labeled by researchers as the world’s most important intact prairie due to its status as one of the world’s last large native prairies that has not substantially been modified or converted to farmland.

Managers at the refuge and local private landowners have been utilizing prescribed burns in the area to manage specific grasses and improve the habitat for various plant and animal species that call the refuge’s 21 wetland complexes home, many of which were present before European colonization of the area began.

Fire has also been used to protect the prairie against its gravest immediate threat of woody encroachment, including red cedars. Apart from fueling massive fires like the Morrill Fire, the trees also displace grasslands grazed by livestock and enjoyed by native wildlife, according to University of Nebraska researchers.

“They’re all losing ground to woody plants,” Professor of Agronomy and Horticulture Dirac Twidwell said of the prairie in a 2022 article. “We are going to lose those regions if we don’t halt that expansion. The evidence shows that we are not doing a good enough job conserving North America’s grasslands. We have to re-evaluate our conservation mindset if we are actually going to prove that we can conserve this biome within a private-lands ideology.”

The damage to the land is staggering. Roughly 775,000 acres of grazing land wiped out, tens of thousands of cattle impacted, and this isn't some remote patch of scrubland that nobody uses. This is one of America's premier beef-producing regions. This is where our steak comes from.

But one of the largest losses to farmers and ranchers is grass. The fires depleted miles of forage for cattle at an especially fragile time – calving season, when many pregnant cows are needing extra food to carry and feed their calves. Given the historically low number of cattle in the U.S. herd, cattle owners are raking in profits off any new cows they can produce. But with solid cattle prices comes an offset of higher prices for customers at the grocery store.

Recovery timelines are getting pushed back months. Maybe longer. The grass doesn't just grow back overnight. The herds don't rebuild themselves. The ranchers who've been working these properties for generations are looking at years of work gone in a matter of days. 

Really heartbreaking to see.

And one major turd on top of a steaming pile of shit, that I'm not really reading about anywhere other than twitter, is that Nebraska sits on top of the Ogallala Aquifer.

What the hell is that you ask?

Oh no big deal. Its just the largest underground freshwater source in the United States. It supplies roughly 30% of all irrigation used in American agriculture.

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That aquifer doesn't get recharged easily. It takes centuries to, and now you've got 800,000+ acres of scorched earth sitting on top of it, with soil composition altered, erosion accelerating, and the whole ecosystem of that region fundamentally disrupted.

And the best part is that none of this is happening in a vacuum.

Grazing land= wiped out. 

Critical water source beneath it=compromised. 

Fertilizer prices= already elevated heading into planting season thanks to Iran conflict. 

Shipping disruptions= lol. Lets just say they are "increasing". 

Global tensions= not exactly trending toward stability. 

Food supply chains are getting squeezed from every direction at the same time, and the fire that just torched the heartland of American beef production can't crack the top ten stories of the week. Good times! 

Giphy Images.

Thoughts and prayers for all the families affected by this tragedy. And massive thank you's to the firefighters and servicemen and women who helped battle these for the last two weeks.