April 17 could be a historic day for wildfires across the High Plains and Southwest cautions officials with the Oklahoma Forestry Service (OFS) and the National Weather Service (NWS).
The amount of moisture received across the US southern high plains since October has been ridiculously low. Forecasters warn of intensifying drought and wheat crop losses.
High temperatures, low humidity and heavy winds have Oklahoma’s wildfire threat at its highest point in a decade, according to the National Weather Service.
A tractor operator who was killed in a wildfire that scorched 70 square miles in little more than 24 hours in the Pacific Northwest appears to have died trying to restrain it, police said.
The author of the popular “Hank the Cowdog” series has written a book about a massive wildfire nearly a year after he lost his own home in the Perryton Fire.
Local, state and federal officials along with conservation groups and logging interests have to find common ground to reduce increasingly destructive wildfires in the U.S. West, Idaho Gov. Brad Little said Tuesday.
Federal officials have released a plan to save sagebrush habitats in Western states that support cattle ranching, recreation and 350 wildlife species, including imperiled sage grouse.
Firefighters are battling dozens of wildfires in Kansas and Nebraska that have erupted since the weekend, even as calmer winds on Wednesday helped contain or extinguish most of them.
Wildfires have burned up to 200,000 acres in Oklahoma forcing the Governor to declare a state of emergency, while cattlemen are banding together to form a relief fund to lend a helping hand.
Death loss projections from Oklahoma's wildfires are lower than last year's Starbuck Fire that impacted the same region, but anywhere from 1,500-2,500 cattle could have died estimates a state veterinarian.
