March 12, 2026, is a day that will not soon be forgotten by those of us that call the sandhills of western Nebraska home. For me it started like all my days this time of the year. We started our day by feeding the few calves that we have in the corral for freezer beef, then moved on to the calving lots where Duwrango Frye, my right hand man, and I proceeded to tag the new calves and look for any problems in the heavy cows that needed to be taken care of. After the calves had been tagged and recorded, we went on with our feeding chores. Soon after we had finished feeding, the wind began to blow as forecasted for the day. We decided that it was a good day to be in the tractor cab out of the blowing dirt. I worked on applying gopher poison to the alfalfa pivot while Duwrango harrowed cow chips on a meadow. I had kissed my wife and kids goodbye earlier in the day as the kids were headed to spend a long weekend with grandparents and my wife was attending a homeschool conference in Lincoln. I’d come to be very grateful they weren’t home in the coming hours.
About three in the afternoon, the first call came in. The wind was gusting to nearly 80 miles per hour, and the visibility had dropped to about a quarter mile with all the blowing dirt and dust. The caller told us that there was a fire north of Broadwater, about half an hour up the highway to the west of us. We couldn’t see any smoke, but with the wind, we knew it might be a bad situation if they couldn’t get a handle on it quickly. We called some friends to the west of us to make sure they were ok and asked if they could see anything from where they were. After learning the fire was north of the river and that it was still quite a way west of us, we went on about our night routine of tagging calves again, doing barn chores and putting numbers of the new calves in the master calving book in the barn. We decided that just as a precaution, we needed to load the fire rig on my pickup. That’s when the alert came in. Everyone from County Road 82 north to the Cresent Lake Refuge needed to evacuate now.
We made a few phone calls, loaded the rig and headed north across the river. The wind was still blowing out of the west and visibility was terrible with the dirt and dust. We kept driving north, following a neighboring town’s fire truck. We met trucks and trailers loaded with horses and ranch dogs headed south to the safety of town. When we crested the hill overlooking the Blue Creek Valley, all we saw was flames. Ranch rigs, and firetrucks were doing all that they could to save the buildings, corrals and homes. We paused for a minute to start the pump on our sprayer, locked in the hubs and said a prayer. Our first task was to pull a brush truck out of a sand wash. Another truck made sure the fire didn’t overrun us while we pulled. We sprayed water, beat hot spots with a shovel and felt like we had secured the area the best that we could.
Just before 9 p.m. we were informed that more resources were needed north of Lewellen. We followed our firefighter friends through an apocalyptic scene of burning hay bales, blackened prairie, and downed trees smoldering in the road. When Duwrango and I got north of Lewellen, the wind switched and switched fast. We were retreating in a hurry as the fire crossed the road by the substation north of town. Our efforts turned from fighting fire, to banging on doors to evacuate people in the path of the conflagration. For the next two hours we pounded on doors, helped people pack belongings and watched as the fire moved ever closer to town. Just after midnight a county deputy informed us that we were likely the only grass rig north and west of Lewellen. The wind had slowed a little and there was a chance we could stop a portion of the blaze along a county road.
The next three hours were spent battling the blaze, working hard to stop the fire from advancing. A broken fitting on our pump put us out of commission for the night so we started making our way home. Tears ran down our soot-stained faces as we watched the orange glow stretch for miles. Our neighbors, friends and fellow ranchers lost cows, grass, homes, fences and generations of hard work in a matter of hours. The Sandhills are a special place, the people here are tough, caring, hardworking and full of pride in this piece of ground that we call home. We weren’t alone in fighting that fire that night, from Broadwater to Arthur, volunteers, ranchers, farmers, blade operators and other emergency personnel fought for days and nights on end to control the blaze.
Keep praying for us, this too shall pass. Pray for rain, for those that lost everything and for those trying to rebuild. Support your local fire department and give back when you can. That’s all for this time, keep tabs on your side of the barbed wire and God Bless.