For a few fleeting moments, Jim Sipes didn’t know if he would lose his farm.
His wife had heeded the evacuation warnings and left their Stanton County, Kansas, farm near the ghost town of Saunders that afternoon. Sipes stayed behind to fight the fires.
Sipes was headed to see if he needed to assist neighbors when the fire changed directions. He tried to head home when he realized he was blocked and had to find another route.
“I was driving from one ditch to the other,” he said. “I was feeling my way down the road—you could not see anything.”
Neighbors showed up. From 6:30 p.m. to 1 a.m., he and a crew disked around the farmstead. The fire, which got within a quarter mile of the home at one point, broke through the fire line once, getting into dryland corn stalks. They were able to control it by the time it reached the second fire line.
“We were lucky,” Sipes said. “We’re surrounded by a lot of wheat acres, which saved our place. All we lost here was crop residue on wheat and grain sorghum. But I had a neighbor who lost their home just a mile to the northwest.”
Sipes estimated at least five farm families-if not more-lost their homes in Stanton County. Some ranchers are putting down baby calves.
“There are some in Colorado, too,” he said, adding that a 70-year-old woman near where the fire started lost her home.
As he spoke Wednesday morning, he said he heard that the fire had reignited, but fire crews are watching it and letting it burn out.
Sipes said the estimate is about 130 electric poles are down. He is planning to fire up generators to help neighbors water cattle.
First, this morning, he is heading to the field.
“Now the dirt is blowing so bad we can’t see,” he said. “We are firing up the tractors to stop the blowing.”
Amy Bickel can be reached at [email protected].
