By CRISTINA JANNEY and JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post
A haze still hung heavy over the fire-scarred prairie of Ellis and Russell counties Thursday.
Miles and acres upon acres were blackened by wildfires Wednesday that were fanned by wind gust ranging from 80 to 100 mph.
Fire crews were still working hot spots as fires reiginited parched grass and stubble fields Thursday.
Ellis County Fire Chief Darin Myers said crews were back out Thursday morning addressing some of the more difficult fires to get to because of the terrain and the lack of visibility last night.
As of this morning, there were still between eight to 10 active fires burning.
Ellis County Fire Chief Darin Myers said Thursday morning emergency officials had identified at least eight homes destroyed by the fires north and east of Hays.
Crews at times were surrounding houses and just trying to protect them from the approaching fires, he said.
There have been no reports of serious injury, Myers said. Crews helped rescue some people from their homes and EMS crews were on standby.
An undetermined number of outbuildings and businesses sustained damage or were destroyed by the fires.
At the Sweetwater Ranch, 310th Avenue in northeast Ellis County, the family that runs the ranch was surveying the damage Thursday morning.
By some miracle, the hills all around the homestead burned, but the house and its outbuildings, which are in a draw, were not damaged.
One of the representatives of the ranch, who did not want to be named, said he was lucky, many of his neighbors were not.
"They lost everything," he said, near tears.
The ranch hands were headed to Russell County later in the morning to see if cattle there had made it through the fires.
Russell County fires
Myers said there was also a fire in the northern portion of Ellis County in the area of Severin Road. Several small fires came together as part of one large fire that burned a stretch from U.S. 183 east to U.S. 281 north of Russell.
A woman in rural Russell County, who also did not wanted to be named, was sifting through what was left of her home Thursday morning.
All that was left of the more than 100-year-old home was a limestone shell. She said many neighbors had offered to help her clean up, but she asked them to wait.
She said she was still processing the loss and wanted to see what little might be saved from the ashes.
In Paradise, north of Russell, at least one home in the city was burned to the ground, yet a child's swing set nearby had been untouched except for being blown over by the wind.
The Paradise Community Church was opened to feed first responders and others who were displaced by the fires.
One of the volunteers said her home was not damaged, but she had counted at least 10 families in the area that had lost theirs.
That could not be confirmed, as the Russell County sheriff and emergency manager were still in the field as of the time this story was published.
The volunteer said as the fires closed in the city and homes began to lose power, strangely, the Christmas lights in Paradise remained on.
Ellis County fires
In Ellis County, Darin Myers said dozens of fires were reported but there were three main fires:
1 – A fire started in the late afternoon northeast of Hays and burned about 100 hay bales.
2 – A fire started south of Riga and moved toward Ellis.
First responders began evacuating the western edge of the city.
As they were doing that, the conditions shifted. The fire came within about a mile of the west side of the city, but fire crews were able to get the fire stopped.
3 - A fire started in the area of Cedar Bluff feedlot in Trego County and moved west along the Smoky Hill river toward the Grants Villa area.
Ellis County Commission Chairman Butch Schlyer issued a local disaster declaration at 8 p.m. Wednesday. This will help local emergency departments and landowners with funding that could be available.
Coming together
Myers called the disaster an unfortunate set of circumstances, but, “nice to see everybody come together.”
There were about 25 Ellis County vehicles and 70 firefighters who helped fight the blazes.
The crews also received assistance from Ness, Russell and Ellsworth counties. Agencies included the following:
City of Hays firefighters
KHP
Ellis County EMS
Public works – four water tankers
Numerous farmers and landowners helped with discs
Numerous businesses
The Red Cross helped to feed crews Wednesday night.
Myers also wished to thank to Midwest Energy for its efforts to restore power to the dispatch center in Hays.
When the power went down in Hays, 911 calls were diverted to Pratt per local contingency plans. Pratt talked with Hays dispatch, who relayed calls to local personnel.
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