Interim Chief Steckel: ‘Life safety’ prioritized as Seward County crews helped knock down Andrew Lane (River) Fire

Interim Fire Chief Braden Steckel said Seward County crews were paged at about 13:32 to help a fire near Tyrone and then redirected as the Stevens/river fire moved toward the county. “So a big part of the fire service is always gonna be life safety, and that's our main concern that day,” Steckel said, describing efforts to protect homes as wind shifts threatened Liberal.

Steckel recounted that five units initially responded to the Tyrone incident, then shifted to the southwest corner of Seward County where personnel found fire near Road B south of Road 3. Tankers and tractors (“discs”) were used to choke the fire; aircraft and Kansas Forest Service resources joined later. He logged the Andrew Lane (River) Fire pager at 15:51, reported aircraft en route in the 16:30–17:00 hour, and said the fire was “knocked down at Road C and 3” at about 17:47.

Steckel provided totals for the county’s effort: Seward County crews recorded about 76 hours on the Andrew Lane incident, with Seward County personnel spending roughly 40 hours 30 minutes on scene; some personnel were active for about 39 hours and 9 minutes without sleep. The fire was declared 100% contained on Feb. 24 at 18:18 and land was released back to owners, Steckel said.

The chief emphasized that simultaneous fires across the region constrained mutual aid: "we had several fires happen at the same time, and, unfortunately, we couldn't get all the help we needed to when we first needed to just because there's fires going on everywhere." Commissioners asked for follow‑up incident reports and common recommendations to be compiled into an after‑action package to guide next steps.

The commission did not take further action in the meeting on the incident report; staff said they would consolidate incident reports and return recommendations for improved planning and coordination.