Firefighters from across Cass County responded Saturday evening to a brush fire that jumped the Missouri River just south of the Lake Waconda community near Union, Nebraska.
The fire, which started in Iowa, burned approximately 697 acres in Cass County and was 85% contained as of Monday afternoon. Many firefighters were still responding to the blaze, and a National Guard helicopter was dumping water from Lake Waconda onto hotspots, such as still-smoldering trees and brush piles. No structures burned or injuries were reported.
State resources and local emergency managers will demobilize Monday evening, though local fire departments will continue to monitor the area, according to the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency.
Shane Adams is the incident commander with Nehawka Volunteer Fire Department. He said there were still about 12 fire departments responding to the fire Monday, but at one time, there were at least 30.
“There was just fire everywhere,” he said. “And kind of like a, ‘Oh, we need to just start paging anybody and everybody.’”
In addition to local fire departments, state agencies including the Fire Marshal, National Guard and State Patrol all assisted. Cass County declared a disaster Sunday, and Gov. Jim Pillen approved a state disaster, which allows money from the Governor’s Emergency Fund to be used in the response.
Area firefighters had been near Lake Waconda all day Saturday, watching the fire burn across the river, Adams said. Around 6 p.m., about 10 minutes after they left, a homeowner called saying the eastern wind caused the fire to jump over to the Nebraska side of the Missouri River.
“It was very intense when it first started,” Adams said. “With a wall of fire, that’s coming, headed toward the Lake Waconda area. It was moving very rapidly.”
Kevin Brown, a Lake Waconda resident, said he noticed smoke and flames late Saturday afternoon.
“It was pretty intense, and it kept going as the night went on,” Brown said. “And then they asked us to evacuate Saturday evening.”
Only some residents reside in Lake Waconda full-time. Those who had evacuated were allowed to return Sunday morning.
“(I was) just hoping and praying that it didn’t get to here,” Brown said. “And we had a lot of people down here fighting the fire, and they did an excellent job.”
The Nehawka Fire Department’s second station in Union, located five miles from Lake Waconda, became the command post where people signed out equipment and radios.
Donations started coming in Sunday and picked up pace Monday. Water, toilet paper, paper towels, snacks, fruit, toiletries – anything firefighters might need began to pile up. The fire department shared on social media that it no longer needed donations, but the outpouring of support was appreciated, said Shane Adams’ wife, Alyssa Adams, who volunteered to work the command post
“It is just really important to us because they’re out there, they’ve been out there since Saturday, a lot of them have been,” Adams said. “And it just helps them keep going, and they appreciate it just as much as we do.”