Crews fighting Kansas wildfires get assist from snow, rain

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Firefighters grappling with the biggest wildfire in Kansas history got a welcomed Easter assist from pre-dawn snowfall over the hardest-hit area, though the looming prospect of flame-fanning winds threatened to undermine the effort.

The National Weather Service said about a half an inch of precipitation in the form of rain and snow fell early Sunday southwest of Wichita in Barber County, which accounts for 427 of the 620 square miles scorched during the blaze that began Tuesday in Oklahoma before spreading into Kansas.

Forestry officials in both states said Sunday the fires had been 45 percent contained, including roughly one-third of the blaze in Barber County. But shifting, stiffer winds were expected, potentially reigniting hot spots or extending flames beyond the fire line. Around south-central Kansas, winds on Monday could gust to 15 to 25 mph, then increase to 30 to 45 mph the next day, National Weather Service meteorologist Brad Ketcham said.

Any chance of precipitation in that area could come Tuesday night, “but it looks like that will be very isolated, very scattered,” Ketcham said.

“We’re preparing for another couple of critical fire days,” said Hannah Anderson, an Oklahoma Forestry Services spokeswoman. “It’s going to need something more significant to put it out. The conditions are just extremely dry.”

While crediting the Kansas snowfall for quenching dry, vulnerable prairie grass, native cedar trees abundant around Barber County caught much of that precipitation on their branches and left possible hot spots beneath them parched and at risk of rekindling, Kansas Forest Service spokeswoman Shawna Hartman said. The precipitation also likely offered little fire-suppressing benefit in the area’s drainages and sloping canyons, she said.

Four UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters from the Kansas National Guard remained on the scene Sunday.