Thousands evacuated as Reno County fires rage

Wildfires in multiple counties continued to burn overnight into Tuesday morning, causing the voluntary evacuation of up to 12,000 people in the Hutchinson area, according to the Kansas Adjutant General’s Department.

Reno County Sheriff Randy Henderson said early Tuesday morning that a fire that now spans 25 square miles in the northern part of the county had escaped a containment line at about 6 p.m. Monday night.

The evacuation area, Henderson said, spanned along K-61 from 30th Avenue to 108th Avenue. Henderson said about 100 firefighters from 17 agencies continued to fight the blazes in Reno County as of Tuesday morning.

“This is a long way from being over,” Henderson said during a news briefing.

Between 10,000 and 12,000 Hutchinson-area residents were evacuated Monday night, with between 100 and 200 taking advantage of a Red Cross shelter that had been set up Monday night at the Kansas State Fairgrounds, said Dicie Nicklaus of the Red Cross.

Nicklaus said close to 100 people stayed overnight at the shelter while many others who were evacuated stayed at hotels.

Doug Hanen, interim chief of the Hutchinson Fire Department, said the main fire in Reno County stretches for about 7 miles and has a width of about a half-mile in most areas.

“We cannot emphasize enough the seriousness of the situation,” Hanen said during the news briefing. “We do not have a complete handle on this fire. We’re using all the resources we have available. We’re doing our best – your local responders are exhausted.”

According to a news release sent early Tuesday from the Adjutant General’s Department, active fires were reported in 21 Kansas counties, though some of the fires had been mostly contained.

Wildfires also caused voluntary evacuations in the cities of Wilson and Dorrance in central Kansas with about 400 people being displaced. Nicklaus said Red Cross shelters had also been set up in Coldwater (Coldwater High School) in Comanche County and in Ford County at the Dodge City Community College’s Student Activity Building.

A fourth Red Cross shelter had also been set up at the Hodgeman County Fairgrounds in Jetmore.

On Monday, the Kansas Army National Guard out of Salina deployed four Black Hawk helicopters equipped with 660-gallon water buckets. The helicopters dropped more than 33,600 gallons of water on fires in Reno County, according to the Adjutant General’s Department.

Helicopters were scheduled to run again in the firefighting efforts at daylight on Tuesday, the release said. Additional out-of-state firefighting resources – including units from the National Forestry Service – were being requested for the Kansas fires as of Tuesday morning.

Officials on Tuesday asked members of the public and those evacuated to stay away from the areas still affected by fires.

The National Weather Service continued to discourage outdoor burning on Tuesday and continued an “extreme fire danger” warning for most of Kansas.

This story was originally published March 7, 2017 at 7:57 AM with the headline "Thousands evacuated as Reno County fires rage."