Listen To This Story
Just a short turn off Interstate 80, the doors open to Nebraska’s vast Sandhills. Here, just about four months ago, the state’s largest wildfire in history burned through over 600,000 acres. It tore through pastureland, public infrastructure and the livelihoods of ranchers across western Nebraska.
Even with federal assistance and generous donations, ranchers are still assessing the damage and figuring out how to move forward.
Van Newkirk Herefords in Oshkosh has operated for about 140 years. In his fourth decade of ranching, owner Joe Van Newkirk said he’s never seen anything like the magnitude of the Morrill Fire.
“We’re not in charge,” Van Newkirk said. “I mean, you think you got a handle on your operation, you know? Then something like this happens – changes everything in 18 hours.”
The ranch is quieter than usual for this time of year. When the wildfire came within two miles of the cattle operation, livestock had to be moved immediately.
“We have a fall calving herd, and we just hauled them off,” Van Newkirk said. “They're being dry-lotted in central Nebraska now.”
Van Newkirk said his ranch is luckier than most. It lost no outbuildings or livestock, but some pastureland, fencing and water tanks were burned or damaged.
With minimal physical damage, the largest expenses will come from moving cattle to healthier pastures. Between fencing replacements, water tank repairs and diesel cost, he’s still calculating the total damage estimate.
"It's going to be very expensive. I can't give you a dollar amount,” Van Newkirk said. “These guys that got completely burned out – it's going to quadruple their expenses.”
That fall calving herd is moving back home, and truckloads of pregnant heifers were sent to central Nebraska in early July.
“When you're transporting those cattle around, you're going to lose some of those unborn calves,” Van Newkirk said. “That's just a fact of life.”
That fall calving herd is moving back home, and truckloads of pregnant heifers were sent to central Nebraska in early July.
“When you're transporting those cattle around, you're going to lose some of those unborn calves,” Van Newkirk said. “That's just a fact of life.”
Van Newkirk said tough times for cattlemen come and go, and sometimes expensive decisions are the only way to move forward.
"You're just gonna have to bite the bullet and do it, and see if your calf check covers it,” he said.
Extreme drought has also compounded the struggle of the fire’s aftermath. Pastureland that survived the wildfire isn’t as dense and can’t be grazed on as heavily as normal.
“That ground is very, very fragile,” Van Newkirk said. “But people have been up here for generations. They know what to do. I would guess people will use those pastures next year, but they probably won’t use them as hard – might not have the cattle out there that long.”
The cost of disaster
It’s difficult to know the total amount of private damages caused by the March wildfires. Nebraska county officials – namely clerks and emergency managers – can take reports from landowners and visit properties to assess damage. State and local government agencies are not required to do a full audit of damages following a disaster.
According to Region 21 Emergency Management, which covers emergency operations in Garden and Morrill counties, at least one home and about 10 outbuildings in Garden County were damaged. No loss total was reported.
However, requests for property tax exemptions due to damage reveal the wider extent of private damage in Garden County. Landowners can file a Report of Destroyed Real Property with their county clerk if they’ve experienced a 20% or higher loss of the current assessed property value.
Garden County Assessor Clint Robertson told Nebraska Public Media News that at least 60 property owners have filed that form, covering about 445,500 acres.
He usually only sees one or two in a given year. Robertson said the county identified about 100 property owners that could file a report, and they have until Wednesday to do so.
State and federal officials calculated about $10 million in damage across the affected counties, but that was only to public infrastructure like roads and utility systems.
Damages were the worst in Garden and Grant counties. Gov. Jim Pillen’s May 8 request for the disaster declaration said roads suffered “significant damage” and public power utilities “will require full reconstruction of segments of the system rather than repairs.”
President Trump approved a presidential disaster declaration in early July, opening up nearly $10 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to cover those public infrastructure damages.
Recovery is 'case-by-case'
Those FEMA funds won’t help ranchers like the Van Newkirks cover their losses. If landowners need outside help, federal programs and donations are the most direct way to fill their needs.
“They care for the land, they care for the animals, and so this has been challenging for them,” said Hilary Maricle, state executive director for Nebraska’s Farm Service Agency. “But they're just resilient, and they step up, and they make it happen. It's not their first time dealing with a disaster. It may be one of the worst they've ever dealt with, but they're going to make it happen.”
Maricle said the Farm Service Agency (FSA) is available to help with that process. Through the USDA, the FSA operates multiple programs that can provide disaster relief covering loss of equipment, damage to agricultural infrastructure, transporting supplies and lost livestock.
For example, the Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) provides “cost-sharing” to cover repair expenses. Under the ECP, the FSA can cover 75% of fencing repair costs – or up to 90% for beginning farmers – with a cap of $500,000 per disaster.
“Nobody's the same, and so they may not all be using the same programs. They may be using different pieces of different programs,” Maricle said. “We're going to work on that case-by-case basis and see what works for that farmer or rancher.”
A USDA Secretarial Disaster Declaration was approved on July 8, opening up emergency loans through the FSA as well. Deadlines for FSA programs have been extended, and the agency was granted waivers for some on-site inspections to keep disaster relief moving. Some assistance is also available for ag producers who have experienced “economic injury” due to widespread, extreme drought.
Ranchers can visit their county office to discuss which programs they qualify for.
“We'd really encourage them to reach out to their local office and have those conversations,” Maricle said. “We're here to help and work through what we can do in their disaster recovery.”
Programs through the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Program are available for damage relief as well. These are not disaster programs, but they can help landowners rebuild infrastructure in more sustainable and potentially fire-resistant ways.
Maricle said it’s the FSA’s goal to have projects completed on a year-long timeline, but everyone’s situation is different, and access to labor could extend repairs.
“I could be proven wrong, but we're probably going to be doing some extensions on ECP implementation time, simply because getting the work done is going to take longer. It's so widespread and it's such a large emergency event,” Maricle said.
Advocates for wildfire victims say it’s important to keep detailed records of damages, including timelines, dated photos, livestock and grazing records, expenses and receipts. This helps them quickly and accurately apply for multiple programs and sort their costs accordingly.
Private sources of help are also available.
As landowners apply for programs and relief funding, generous Nebraskans, out-of-state cattle producers and private corporations stepped in to donate food, supplies and labor.
Laura Field, executive vice president of the Nebraska Cattlemen, said the organization’s fund for disaster relief has reached $2.2 million.
“We are just so humbled by the response,” Field said.
Those funds came from over 2,200 donors in 48 states and five countries, Field said.
“Gifts have been from $5 to $200,000, and they've come from everywhere,” she said. “They've come from school kids to Fifth Sunday worship at a church that took up a collection in their offering plates to big corporations who've said, ‘How can we help?’”
Field said a selection committee will decide which applicants get funding. She said money hasn’t been distributed yet because wildfire season is still ongoing, and needs could change.
“We have also spoken to a number of our members who have said, “Hey, we're still assessing damage, don't get in a hurry, this is a long game. We are going to be doing this for a while, we're going to be cleaning up, we're going to need help down the road,’” she said.
According to Field, the Nebraska Cattlemen’s Association will choose an application deadline soon. It has only received 50 applications so far, but she is certain there is more need.
“[Sandhills Relief] put together a fund, and I know the Farm Bureau has a fund,” Field said. “Some of those funds have already started distributing money, which is wonderful. I think we all realize that this is going to be a group effort and a long-term deal.”
She encourages those affected by wildfires to seek all sources of help available to them.
“Most ag producers are just such hard workers and believe that it takes hard work and you gotta pick yourself up and dust yourself off and get going without having to have a lot of people help,” Field said. “And yet, when it's the magnitude of what some of these folks faced, there's no way you can do it by yourself in some places.”
Joe Van Newkirk said he’s seen that hesitance first hand.
“There was just a slug of donated hay and fencing supplies donated to this country,” Van Newkirk said. “I've had several calls from out-of-the-area cattlemen that say, ‘Give me a name. Who needs this.’ None of them would take anything. They’d give them their neighbor's name. And then, of course, they wouldn't take it either.”
Van Newkirk said he doesn’t plan to apply for private or federal help, but it’s not out of stubbornness. He says the generosity of others has already made a huge impact on his ranch and in his community.
“It really enlightens you on how good people really are,” Van Newkirk said.
Van Newkirk also said ranchers would likely take property tax relief as a disaster relief option, but there aren’t many other revenue sources for affected counties.
“The state needs to do something about this,” he said. “It's pretty high, compared to Wyoming, Colorado, all of our neighbors. But we understand that there's really no tourism. There's no minerals. There's really nothing else they can tax other than the land to get the revenue that's needed – and these schools got to operate.”
For now, Van Newkirk said he’s taking it day by day.
“We’ve kind of got around the fences – got them up,” he said. “We've got to do some work to the water areas, but that's just going to take time. We're going to wait for it to kind of heal up, because that sand was just blowing all over the place those first six weeks after that fire.”
Garden County is looking greener than it did in March after some timely rain. Dry, cement-like plains of charred land have given way to patches of soft green grass – signs that the resilient Sandhills are coming back to life.
“These last two, three, four weeks have made a world of difference up there,” Van Newkirk said. “It looks like a different place. It looks pretty good, really.”