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More wildfires on the Great Plains

High Plains Public Radio | By Grant Gerlock
Published June 28, 2017 at 1:00 AM CDT
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Valarie Smith

Wildfires can be started by neglected campfires or cigarette butts. They can ignite from prescribed burns run amok, or launch from lightning strikes.

However they’re caused, Victoria Donovan, a Ph.D. student at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, has been running the numbers to see how often they’re happening.

In a new study, she found a serious uptick in wildfires over the last 30 years across the Plains from Texas to the Dakotas.

HPPR EnvironmentwildfiresClark County Kansas
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Grant Gerlock
Harvest Public Media's reporter at NET News, where he started as Morning Edition host in 2008. He joined Harvest Public Media in July 2012. Grant has visited coal plants, dairy farms, horse tracks and hospitals to cover a variety of stories. Before going to Nebraska, Grant studied mass communication as a grad student at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and completed his undergrad at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa. He grew up on a farm in southwestern Iowa where he listened to public radio in the tractor, but has taken up city life in Lincoln, Neb.
See stories by Grant Gerlock
  1. Xcel Energy accepts responsibility for historic Texas Panhandle wildfire, but denies negligence
  2. The Great Plains now have ‘wildfire years,’ not seasons, as blazes start and spread earlier
  3. The largest of the Texas Panhandle fires are about 90% contained
  4. Largest wildfire in Texas history was ignited by power line, A&M Forest Service says
  5. One of the largest wildfires in Texas history still burning in the Texas Panhandle