Firefighters trying to snuff out the biggest wildfire in Kansas history are getting help from military helicopters and a potential assist from looming rain or snow.
Four UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters from the Kansas National Guard were deployed yesterday in the effort to contain the persistent prairie blazes that since Tuesday have charred at least 1,600 square kilometres in Oklahoma and southern Kansas, destroying at least two homes and some livestock. No serious human injuries have been reported.
At least two of the helicopters have 2,500-litter buckets that will be used to dump water from local sources onto the flames, said Ben Bauman, a spokesman for the Kansas Adjutant General's Office.
The National Guard also was contributing a fuel tanker truck and another ground support vehicle.
Firefighters focused again yesterday southwest of Wichita in Butler County, where only 15 percent of the blaze that has scorched 1,106 square kilometres of the county was contained, said Darcy Golliher, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Incident Management Team.
The National Weather Service said the area where the fire has raged, which borders Oklahoma, may get one-tenth to a quarter inch (0.25 to 0.64 centimetres) of rain or snow last night or this morning.
Shawna Hartman, a Kansas Forest Service spokeswoman, said slightly windier conditions prevailed yesterday compared with the previous day. And while she expects the forecast precipitation to add welcome moisture, "it really won't do anything to the fire that's actively burning."
Still, she said, "we don't anticipate the perimeter (of the fire) increasing at all."
The prospect of relief from rain may offer little solace to 87-year-old Don Gerstner, a Korean War veteran who along with his wife, Carol, lost their home near Medicine Lodge to the fire after the two narrowly escaped it.
Gerstner said he looked out his kitchen window Wednesday and saw what he described as a fast-approaching "wall of fire." He yelled for his wife to get her pocketbook, and the couple fled with their dogs, at times driving through flames to make their getaway.
The couple watched from afar as the fire consumed their home of 54 years, much of the structure built with bricks from the county's old courthouse.
