“It just, kind of gives you goosebumps to see how everybody just pulled together to try to stop this thing. I think, overall, it went as good as it possibly could, using some of these resources that we’ve never had to request, it was amazing how quickly they arrived, and how we were able to put them to work for us,” said Alliance Volunteer Fire Department Chief Troy Shoemaker, describing the massive effort to contain the Schiff Fire last week.
It took a dedicated effort from more than 120 area firefighters, farmers, ranchers, community members and businesses, who worked for many hours across two days, to get the Schiff Fire under control, a feat that saw even Governor Jim Pillen declare a state of emergency due to the scope of the blaze. The proclamation, which was announced on Friday, allows usage of the Governor’s Emergency Fund to aid in paying for recovery efforts.
2024 Box Butte and Morrill Counties State of Emergency Proclamation
Shoemaker said that they were dispatched on June 18 at 8:47 a.m. to the report of a fire. He said that on that day, they spent a total of 14 hours and nine minutes on scene working to contain the fire.
“We had approximately 21 separate fire departments on scene with us,” said Shoemaker. “We had the State of Nebraska’s Wildland Incident Response Assistance Team, they brought three members in. We had about 42, what we call type six engines, and 25 tankers. We had Region 21 Emergency Management out there. We had a number of farmers and ranchers with water tanks and tractor trailers that were full of water. We had a number of land owners that were out there as well helping us. It was a pretty active scene, not only with the fire, but with the equipment and people. It was truly a community effort on trying to corral this thing.”
Shoemaker noted that they also received aid from an aerial sprayer, as well as a heavy air tanker out of Grand Junction, Colo. He said it was the first time the department has requested a heavy air tanker to aid in the battle.
“That dropped what most people see on TV, like that red slurry stuff,” Shoemaker said. “They dropped that on there. They refilled in Rapid City. We had that, which was a major help. Both of those airplanes were a major help. We’ve used aerial sprayers over the years, but having this big airplane come out of Colorado to come help us was just amazing.”
The blaze, however, reared its ugly head again on June 19, sparking a quick response from the firefighters.
“We don’t believe that the fire grew in size, as much as we had pockets of islands inside what we call our containment line that flared back up,” said Shoemaker. “So we were paged out Wednesday morning at 9:36 (a.m.), and we were back in the station by about 5:30 Wednesday. We had about five departments Wednesday out there with us. There was about 25 people. Basically Wednesday, we spent more time just cooling off hot spots and stuff like that. When we left Wednesday night, we classified the fire at 95 percent containment.”
Firefighters responded to another call in the area on June 20, though they were unable to locate any fires.
“One of the landowners thought they saw smoke,” Shoemaker said. “When we got out there, there wasn’t smoke. We believe the wind brought up the ash and the dust on the front of that storm, so thankfully we didn’t have anything.”
On Thursday night, Shoemaker noted, they classified the fire as 100 percent contained. Shoemaker said that the fire began in Box Butte County, located near Valley Road. He said it later crossed into Morrill County near Road 140 and CR 81, and continued to progress south.
“The point of origin was a well, fed with power, and it was a powerline that contributed to the start of the fire,” said Shoemaker. “It was basically a two-county fire.”
Initially, officials estimated that a minimum of 8,600 acres were burned, but after completing aerial reconnaissance, they downgraded the estimate to about 6,576 acres. He said that they know of at least one out building and fence posts that were damaged, and one animal that perished in the fire.
“We tried to confirm some of that, and are still trying to confirm some of that, so I don’t want to speculate,” said Shoemaker. “We do know that when we mapped it, we did see one cow or calf that had perished, and some type of small structure.”
One of the largest challenges in working to contain the fire was gaining access to it and keeping water and other resources at hand.
“It was really rough country out where we were at, and access is always an issue for most of these types of fires,” said Shoemaker. “Just the sheer size and access with the terrain. The wind did not help us at all.”
He emphasized how grateful he is for all of the support they received in fighting this fire.
“There’s no way that any one department could have done this on their own,” Shoemaker said. “I’m just overwhelmed with the amount of support that all of us received, and how well everyone worked together. They were concerned about each other and checking on each other. It does take a little bit of time to make sense of all the resources that are coming in, because they are coming in at different times, but hopefully we didn’t miss anybody. If we missed anybody, we apologize, because it’s not our intent to leave anybody out. We just appreciate all the support that everybody was able to give us: all the fire departments and all the farmers and ranchers that were working just as hard as the fire departments were, helping us. It was amazing to see.”
While firefighters were battling the blaze at the scene, back at the station, Shoemaker noted, they witnessed an outpouring of community support, with people phoning in to offer help in any way they could.
“I can tell you that Tuesday, before I got out there, I had two cell phones to my ear, and every phone that we had in the fire station was ringing,” Shoemaker said. “So, not only did we have our folks going out there, and already asking for mutual aid, and stuff like that, but two of us at the fire station couldn’t keep up with the phones and trying to write down people saying, ‘we have this water truck that carries this much water, do you need us?’ We were writing those things down with contact numbers so we could give it to our initial incident commander if they needed it, and where’s the best place to have them go out there. It was just amazing. Sometimes, it just takes a little bit of time to take all that in and figure out where you need to put them in the right place and not put anybody in harm’s way, more than what we already are. Once you get that going, everything starts to work out pretty smooth, and that’s what it did for us Tuesday night.”
Shoemaker shared an example from the battle on Tuesday night, noting that as the fight continued, they began to run low on fuel for the firetrucks and pumps. He made a call to WESTCO, and they responded quickly to offer support.
“It seemed like it took no time, and we had a fuel truck out there from WESTCO, and we were getting trucks fueled back up,” said Shoemaker. “When I say that we had a major amount of support, we had a major amount of support from all kinds of folks: farmers, ranchers, ag-related businesses, semis that could carry water. We had WESTCO, which is an ag-related business, that didn’t even blink an eye when I asked for a fuel truck. They said, ‘What do you need?’ and I said, ‘We need diesel and unleaded,’ and the fuel truck driver got ahold of me on my phone and we were able to coordinate where we needed him at to come in and set up. Me and him started fueling vehicles and tracking the amount of fuel that we dispensed. It takes a lot of people, and there’s a lot of parts to the puzzle. Hopefully, now, the puzzle is complete.
“It all goes back to the community and the amount of support that we received from all the mutual aid fire departments, and some of them that don’t even belong to the mutual aid associations that we do,” Shoemaker said. “We think we had over 120 personnel from fire departments, and that’s not necessarily counting all the people; the landowners and the families and friends, and everybody that came out to help. It was just simply just amazing. I can’t overstate how appreciative our fire department is for all the help we were able to receive. If it wasn’t for the help, I don’t know where we would be at today.”
