2022 Midlanders of the Year: Nebraska’s volunteer firefighters

Five largest wildfires in Nebraska during 2022

CAMBRIDGE, Neb. – Less than 24 hours after a monster wildfire in southwest Nebraska killed his father – a retired volunteer fire chief – Kyle Trumble, himself a volunteer firefighter, was back on the fire lines.

The winds had shifted, and the April wildfire was threatening Cambridge, the community of 1,000 he called home.

“When I went back out to fight the fire, I left two young boys and a wife,” he said, his voice cracking. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, you come home. But you just never know what will happen.”

That same month, during another nearby megafire, emergency responders feared for their lives as they used the Jaws of Life to pull two of their colleagues from a fatal wreck in the middle of the fire.

Visibility was maybe five feet, and somewhere out in the smoke was the wail of another firetruck headed their way. They had driven at a crawl to the scene and still had to swerve into the the grass to avoid the crashed vehicles.

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“Would the firetruck stop in time?” they asked each other.

“We could hear it coming, but we couldn’t see it,” said Bronson Soucie, a Cambridge volunteer firefighter. “We all bailed into the ditch.”

Smokey Fire update for Friday (copy)

State and federal resources were brought to bear against wildfires in Nebraska in 2022. Here, local firefighters receive aerial support with the Smokey Fire in Banner County.

Only after the fire, when he saw a photo taken at the scene, did he realize another danger they faced: blackened ground under his truck. While they were working to rescue the two men, the fire had crawled up to the road and under the vehicle.

If Cheryl Moody could tell you one thing about her husband, an assistant volunteer fire chief who died battling another of the state’s massive wildfires last year, it would be this:

“He fought fires not because he liked it,” she said. “He didn’t do it for the adrenaline rush. He was just one of those guys who was there to help somebody else.”

The wildfires that struck Nebraska in 2022 defied comprehension. No area of the state, from the Panhandle to the Missouri River, was spared. Fueled by deepening drought and fanned by winds of 50 mph to 70 mph, fires threatened towns, burned homes and left in their wake unbearable heartache.

Three people from the ranks of Nebraska’s volunteer firefighters died: Elwood Chief Darren Krull was in an SUV that collided with a water truck; retired Cambridge Chief JP Trumble was overtaken by flames after he fled from his disabled truck; and Purdum Assistant Chief Mike Moody collapsed while refilling a water tank.

Several others were critically injured, either in crashes, being hit by a firetruck or by being caught in the flames. Many more suffered smoke inhalation, with some now expecting lifelong respiratory problems.

More than 200,000 acres burned, according to the Nebraska Forest Service. That makes 2022 the state’s second-largest fire year on record.

That ranking masks the ferocity of last year because the state’s record fire year, 2012, claimed no lives and left far fewer people injured — despite burning more than twice as many acres.

On one day in April, “it felt like the whole state was on fire,” said Erv Portis, assistant director of the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency.

“There were fires all over the place, and guess who was responding? Our volunteer firefighters,” he said. “Who staffs those? Your neighbors, your families, your employees, your employers.”

For their sacrifices and heroics, Nebraska’s volunteer firefighters are the 2022 Omaha World-Herald Midlanders of the Year.

“They were moving faster and and stronger than any we’ve ever seen,” Justin Mowry, chief of the Wilsonville Volunteer Fire Department, said of the April fires in southwest Nebraska. “The flames were 15 to 20 feet into the air — and this was in grass. It radiated so much heat, you couldn’t get the trucks close to it to knock them down.

“It was like being next to the sun.”

Firefighters did what they could to protect themselves. In one instance, they clustered together and aimed their hoses into the air, hoping the water would shower down and protect them.

Sometimes, they just pulled back. Other times, they ran for safety.

Wildfire south of Gering (copy)

A fire burns south of Gering, Nebraska, in the Cedar Canyon Wildlife Management Area in July. 

Brian Sisson, volunteer fire chief for Arapahoe, said winds pushed embers so far and fast that flames traveled more than a mile in 15 minutes. The old way of fighting fires — working from already burned ground or backburning (using fire to fight fire) — didn’t work.

Normally, firefighters would be out of harm’s way, Sisson said, if they fought the fire from already burned ground, which they call “the black.” “But with the wind the way it was,” he said, “it was blowing past the black, going across highways and across areas you think it would never cross.”

A volunteer firefighter was severely injured in October trying to light a smaller fire to protect a home southwest of Lincoln.

Brad Elder of the Crete Volunteer Fire Department said winds were blowing about 55 mph and the main fire wasn’t visible when he and his partner pulled up to the rural home. But as he bent over to light the counter fire, he was enveloped in flames as fire seemingly came from nowhere.

Elder said he found himself first running, then crawling through flames. The fire burned the back of his pants from his belt to his ankles.

“I was running inside a wall of fire. I couldn’t even see my own feet,” he said.

He lifted his hand and streamers of burned flesh flapped in the wind.

“It looked like a pompon,” he said.

He was convinced he would die and worried about his partner at the scene.

Suddenly, he was hit in the back by a spray of water. His buddy was clearing a path through the fire.

“When his water hit me in the back, it felt like someone cracked a whip on me,” he said. “I knew he was alive and was coming for me.”

And that was just the beginning of the desperate effort by first responders to save Elder’s life. More than two months later, he remains in recovery at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital in Lincoln, contemplating a future he thought he wouldn’t have.

“It was so big and so fast, the things we needed to fight it weren’t in place,” he said.

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Members of the Cambridge Volunteer Fire Department.

In southwest Nebraska, ash, soot and debris from the April fires billowed in thick, disorienting clouds that filled the horizon and obscured roads, vehicles and landmarks. The poor visibility contributed to two of the year’s firefighter deaths and at least three injuries from crashes.

“The visibility was virtually zero,” Sisson said. “We call it ‘driving by Braille.’ You had to drive with your tires on the rumble strips because you had no concept of space or distance … You couldn’t see anything, you didn’t know if you were on the highway or going into a ditch. You tried to piece (the route) together in your head, you’d think a road should be coming up, but it was already behind you.”

The ambulance that carried one of the injured away from that smoky crash did so at a crawl, sometimes stopping in the midst of the fire because the smoke was so thick.

“I had to stop because I didn’t know where I was,” said Mitch Houser, an Arapahoe volunteer firefighter. “You had to wait for the wind to blow the smoke out of the way so that you could see the road. There were flames all over the place, but there was no choice.”

Houser said the only reason the ambulance made it to safety was because he inadvertently drove into the oncoming lane. He was able to look down from the driver’s side window and see the white line along the shoulder.

“That was the only thing I could see,” he said. “It was just pure luck.”

Throughout these fires, even as they pressed forward, firefighters worried about others.

When an accompanying firetruck disappeared in the smoke, Sisson said he wondered: Did it go off the road? Down a ravine?

And there was constant thought of family back home: Were they safe?

“It was nonstop,” Sisson said. “The majority of us are married with kids … (The families) are worried, the fire is coming toward the town. It was a terrifying experience for everyone, even those not fighting the fires.”

Sisson said he still has flashbacks, “memories you don’t want to have.”

“If it’s doing that to me, what’s it doing to other guys?”

Multiple towns were evacuated across Nebraska last year, which included ferrying patients from the local hospital to safety. The town of Cambridge was evacuated twice on back-to-back days.

The largest of the fires occurred in April and October.

On April 7, the 739 Fire ignited in Gosper County, burning through 35,000 acres and destroying at least eight homes. This was the fire that took the life of Krull and left Phelps County Emergency Manager Justin Norris critically injured. Their SUV collided with a water truck on a road where visibility was nearly zero. The driver of the water truck was not hurt.

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Cheryl Krull holds a photo of her husband, Darren Krull, the Elwood volunteer fire chief who died in a crash while responding to a large fire in southwest Nebraska in April. 

Farnam Volunteer Firefighter Travis Metzler was severely injured in the same fire when the truck he was riding in hit a hole in a smoky pasture and rolled. Firefighters carried him to safety on a stretcher made of heavy firefighter clothing secured across the handles of two spades. Metzler suffered multiple broken bones and has been through numerous surgeries.

On April 22, the 702 Fire ignited in northern Kansas and burned into Nebraska and back, consuming about 45,000 acres. This fire took the life of Trumble and injured at least 15 firefighters.

On Oct. 2, another large blaze, the Bovee Fire, burned about 18,900 acres and claimed the life of Moody. That fire burned through the Nebraska National Forest at Halsey, destroying a cherished 4-H camp.

The fire that injured Elder occurred Oct. 23 in Gage and Lancaster Counties and destroyed three homes. On that volatile day, four big fires broke out in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa (the fire southwest of Lincoln, one near Wisner and others near Mondamin and Red Oak, Iowa). Multiple smaller ones also flared up.

Southwest Nebraskans knew their area was tinder dry before the first big fire broke out. And after it erupted, they thought they had seen one for the ages.

“You always hear about 100-year floods, 100-year rains,” Sisson said. “Everybody said, ‘That was a 100-year fire. You’ll never see another one in your life.’ “

Barely two weeks later, they did. The 702 Fire was even larger.

During that first fire, firefighters worked 12-hour shifts for days on end. Some of their rigs ran around the clock.

They had barely finished mopping up hot spots when the second one struck.

We were not at full strength, our vehicles were not all healthy, our guys were not all recovered, we were depleted,” Furnas County Sheriff Doug Brown said. “Every fire agency in our county and surrounding area was depleted.”

Still, firefighters climbed back into their rigs. Among those answering the call was JP Trumble. Even though he was retired, he told his colleagues he would check on homes, spot the fire and call in its movements.

Delaine Soucie, chief of the Cambridge Volunteer Fire Department, described conditions that day: “You couldn’t see anything. You couldn’t see the fire until it was right in front of you or right beside you.

“The conditions were horrible, the worst conditions to fight a fire you could ever ask for. The wind was terrible, I mean that fire was impossible to fight. The fire would blow over the grass rigs, and on the other side of the truck it would already be burning. You could never stay in front of it.

“The smoke and dirt was so bad,” he said, “you couldn’t see where you were. And the next thing you knew, you were in the fire or the fire is all around you.”

Soucie and his crew were among the last to see Trumble — he was pulling out of the driveway of the home of an evacuating family whose house ultimately would burn.

Trumble’s body was found that night near his truck, which had gone off the road and gotten stuck.

Trumble with photo

Kyle Trumble, a volunteer firefighter, was back on the fire lines within 24 hours of the death of his father, JP Trumble, because wildfires were threatening their community, Cambridge. Here, Kyle holds a photo of his father, the retired Cambridge volunteer fire chief.

His son, Kyle, described conditions the day his dad died as “terrifying.”

“If you got in it, you didn’t know how you were going to get out, it was moving so fast,” he said. “We tried fighting it at the very beginning, but everybody pulled back because it was moving too fast. You couldn’t see anything. We were lucky to get away.”

Even though the danger remained and his family was grieving, Kyle said he couldn’t have lived with himself if hadn’t gone out the next day to fight alongside his fellow volunteers.

And that’s the underlying reality for those who live in rural and small-town Nebraska. Fire departments — and often ambulances — are staffed by volunteers. If unpaid, everyday Nebraskans don’t step up, there will be no one to protect their families and property. The state is too vast, the tax base too thin.

“For a lot of us, it’s to help preserve our homes, to help the community we live in,” Mowry said. “We wouldn’t have anyone else in this area to do it.”

According to the Nebraska State Fire Marshal’s Office, 449 of the state’s 478 fire departments are staffed by volunteers. Many are farmers, but the ranks also include a range of professions, such as teachers, utility workers and salespeople.

And these departments are in need of help, the firefighters say. Their ranks are thinning.

Departments have gone from waiting lists for volunteers to vacancies on their rosters, said Mark Meints, volunteer fire chief at Wymore and an officer with the Nebraska State Volunteer Firefighters Association. As a result, fewer people are doing more work while, at the same time, their work is becoming more complicated because of changing materials in homes and cars.

Neighboring fire departments now routinely cover for each other.

And their budgets are tight, despite grants, local tax revenue, donations and fundraisers.

“It’s sad to say, but that truck that is going to save your life, your house — it has to be paid (in part) by a pancake feed,” Meints said.

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A memorial bench honoring Darren Krull, the Elwood volunteer fire chief, who died in April in a crash while responding to a large fire in southwest Nebraska.

Volunteer fire departments are no different from other service groups that are seeing numbers drop off, he said. The nature of community and volunteerism is changing. Young people are moving out of rural Nebraska. For those who stay, jobs often are a good distance away, so volunteers require more time to respond to an emergency, which adds more pressure on the departments.

These fire chiefs describe their work as essentially a second job or similar in complexity to that of a full-time, paid chief.

“The best way I can describe it, is I work my regular job 8 to 5, but also have a second job without really calling it a job,” Sisson said. “It’s something I enjoy doing, helping others. That’s why a lot of people sign up, they are helping their friends.”

Meints figures he puts as much time into his volunteer work as a paid fire chief does. He stops by the firehouse daily to process paperwork, work on grant applications, answer messages and check equipment.

“What would happen if I turned the key and the truck didn’t start?” Meints said. “Somebody has to make sure the truck starts.”

Mowry estimates that he spends the equivalent of a full day a month in meetings related to the fire department.

Any kind of help is appreciated, firefighters said. Stop by the firehouse and mow the lawn or wash a rig, they said. Pitch in some money for new equipment.

Delaine Soucie said they received phenomenal support as they fought the fires.

“We had so much good food, people brought in water, I can’t believe how much people brought in, even people from surrounding states,” he said.

Houser, the Arapahoe volunteer who drove the ambulance, said the outpouring of donations in the wake of the fires has been humbling and gratifying.

“We’ve been very fortunate in that people have given a lot to us,” he said. “We’ve been able to upgrade equipment, we’ve been able to get more safety equipment. It will enable us to support our community.”

Arapahoe will be equipping each of its firetrucks and ambulances with thermal cameras, which will enable drivers to see through the smoke in future emergencies.

Cambridge 1

Members of the Cambridge (Neb.) Volunteer Fire Department. They are rebuilding after a tough year: Their community had to be evacuated twice due to wildfires and their retired fire chief was among those who died.

JP Trumble’s daughter, Staci, has started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money toward a new fire barn for Cambridge. A larger barn would allow all rigs and equipment to be stored in one spot so that firefighters can suit up and head out more quickly.

These volunteer firefighters are quick to say they aren’t the only ones volunteering when fire breaks out. Alongside them are a host of others, from farmers disking up firebreaks and hauling water to townspeople hustling up food, water and support.

Take the day one of the mega fires erupted. A smaller fire had broken out earlier that morning in Wilsonville, but according to several firefighters, it was stopped before it could grow thanks to help from farmers. They disked up a firebreak, which allowed firefighters to bring it under control. Had it not been stopped, it likely would have burned into Cambridge, and by that afternoon, firefighters would have been battling simultaneous major fires.

Also critical to pushing back fires has been state and federal assistance.

The fires were so bad this year that Gov. Pete Ricketts issued a standing declaration for state resources to be available from the spring into fall. In years past, individual emergency declarations were required to activate state resources to fight a fire. In tandem with that, Portis said, the state contracted for two firefighting planes this year. One was on standby from April to November and the other from July through October. In a normal year, the state places a single airplane on standby from July to August.

Three-fourths of the lower 48 states and all of Nebraska is in drought or near-drought. Within Nebraska, the driest areas are the southwest and northeast portions of the state, where extreme to exceptional drought has taken hold, according the National Drought Mitigation Center housed at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Firefighters already are looking ahead, worried about what will happen if the rains don’t return.

No matter what happens in the months ahead, climate scientists say drought years like 2012 and 2022 will become more common as Nebraska becomes more arid with climate change.

“Firefighters are seeing it, fires are getting bigger and worse,” said Elder, who also teaches about climate change at Doane. “Our departments are built for an environment that doesn’t exist anymore. We need to find a way to change with the environment, and that may mean we need better equipment, we need more personnel, we need to up the size of our departments.”

Nebraska updated its firefighting capabilities after the 2012 fire year, and 2022 has been a reminder that more work remains.

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A truck used by the Cambridge Volunteer Fire Department. Volunteer firefighters are quick to say they aren’t the only ones volunteering when fire breaks out. Alongside them are a host of others, from farmers disking up firebreaks and hauling water to townspeople hustling up food, water and support.

Various firefighters noted that radio communication was difficult because departments operated on different frequencies. Thermal imaging cameras, for example, would help more firefighters see through smoke. And grant writing takes time.

Elder and other firefighters say they would like to see farmers preemptively plow 100-foot firebreaks around the perimeter of their fields after harvest. This would slow any winter or spring fires that flare up.

So far, Nebraska has evaded what has befallen some other Great Plains states. The town of Carbon, Texas, burned in a spring wildfire last year. In December 2021, winds sent flames into the Kansas town of Paradise.

In the end, said Mowry and others, firefighters will simply have to double down.

“Volunteers are going to have to put in more time as far as wildland training and that kind of thing,” he said. “It’s going to take more commitment.”

Past Midlanders of the Year

“There were fires all over the place, and guess who was responding? Our volunteer firefighters. Who staffs those? Your neighbors, your families, your employees, your employers.”

— Erv Portis, assistance director, Nebraska Emergency Management

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