By Alliance Volunteer Fire Department, Chief Troy Shoemaker
This is a very quick update about the fire southwest of Alliance. This fire has been named the Schiff Fire. We were dispatched yesterday morning at 8:48 am for a grass fire near County Road 82 and Perkins Road. The fire crossed the Box Butte and Morrill County line at Road 140.
There were a number of mutual aid resources requested that included an aerial applicator out of Grant Nebraska and a Heavy Air Tanker out of Grand Junction Colorado along with fire departments from the Central Panhandle, Pine Ridge, and Scotts Bluff County Mutual Aid Associations and others. We also had the State Wildland Incident Response Assistance Team.
A disaster declaration was signed as well, which allowed us use of state resources. Last night we had a minimum of 8600 acres burned. We are currently mapping the burn area.
We have been assisted by numerous farmers, ranchers, and those that could bring in water for all of us to use. I apologize now and hope you all understand if I missed anyone that has helped us.
We were dispatched again at 9:36 am this morning and are currently on the fire with lot of that same assistance we had last night, which included the aerial spray plane that as since been released.
We truly appreciate all the wonderful help and support that we have received, you are all truly appreciated. Again, I hope you understand a lot of the firefighters are going on little sleep and we have been busy trying to contain this fire.