       Firefighters in Dawes, Sioux, and Box Butte Counties were kept busy Tuesday night and Wednesday with a series of fires, mostly small and mostly caused by lightning.
Chadron Fire Chief Branden Martens says all the area fire departments were jumping fire-to-fire to help where and how they could – all while still taking care of their own fires.
At one time or another within about a 6-hour span Tuesday night, Chadron crews were fighting fires in every direction.
Three trucks went West to help on the Rock Fire under a mutual aid call from Crawford with other rigs going North to extinguish a small grass fire along Hwy 385 north of town.
Some went South, joining with the Hemingford, Gordon, and Rushville VFDs as well as U-S Forest Service crews on the Pasture 16 Fire on the table area of southern Dawes County.
Still others responded to a pair of fires in steep terrain northeast of Chadron along with units from Rushville and Hay Springs. Work continued on those fires into last night.
Chief Martens says the various departments also had a lot of great community help, assisting in getting to some of the fires and in making sure firefighters had plenty of water to combat the high temperatures as well as the heat of the fires and the exertion in battling them.