![Ruins. The damage of an old schoolhouse rests near Bridgeport, Nebraska on March 15. The schoolhouse was one of the first structures that burned down in the wildfires, and Bridgeport resident Naomi Loomis’s husband, Cody Loomis, attended the school when he was younger. “We're still, maybe in the mourning [phase],” Naomi Loomis said. “So, rebuilding is just every day, just trying to make plans, trying to meet with bankers and people that would help us rebuild our corrals or stuff like that.”](https://beaststudentmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/charp.1.jpg)
Wildfires raged across western Nebraska in March, leaving residents and communities left in the ashes and aftermath.
The wildfires, which have become known collectively as the Morrill Wildfire, were ignited on March 12 in the early afternoon. The fire was a result of a downed powerline in Morrill County, and spread quickly due to high winds.
“It spread so quickly because the wind that day, we were having between 50 to 70 mile per hour winds that day, and the wind just set it off,” Bridgeport Volunteer Fire Department Fire Chief Casey Sides said.
The fire spread swiftly across the county and into other counties. Bridgeport resident Naomi Loomis was working at her store, Double A Feeds, when she received multiple calls about wildfires near her ranch. She grabbed her kids and headed home, reaching the fire on the south side of her ranch and trying to stop it.
“We were just trying to put fire out and try[ing] to save animals,” Loomis said. “There was fire trucks that had followed us in, and were actively helping us put the trees out that were closest to the house and to the barn so that they wouldn’t catch on fire.”
Sides said he received the call about the fire around 1:20 P.M. Bridgeport has a volunteer fire department, meaning all of the work the firefighters do is for free. Sides had both an administrative and hands-on role in fighting the fire.
“Because it started in my fire district and I knew what the weather was doing and how fast fire can move with the winds, my biggest role was getting mutual aid from other departments coming in to try to stop it as quick as we could,” Sides said, “and as the phone was ringing and down the valley the other departments of fire were just staying ahead of it…it was moving pretty darn fast.”
By the time the fire was contained on March 29, it had burned over 640,000 acres, according to NASA, and it was the largest wildfire in Nebraska’s history. There was a fatality, 86-year-old Rose White, according to 1011 Now. Most of the land burned in the fire was pastureland, which greatly affects ranchers’ livelihood.
“We lost all our hay, and we lost most of all our corrals, and then we lost all our grazing pastures, our hay meadows, and miles and miles of fencing,” Loomis said. “And then we also did lose some baby calves that were burned up in the fire, and we also lost our horse.”
Because so much of the land lost was pasture, residents of the affected counties are left with other issues, such as where to put their cattle. Another city affected by the wildfires was Oshkosh, and their loss of pastureland left many residents facing new problems with their ranches.
“The ones that have places that they can take them [cattle], like a couple of people I know have places like up in South Dakota,” Oshkosh Mayor Jeannie Schwartz said. “Some of them are, I mean, if they have other means like on the south side of the community or surrounding areas. Otherwise, I would assume that they would have to sell.”
With all the damage done, there are some agencies helping the ranchers. Sides says the ranchers are working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to come up with plans, and the government is helping people affected.
“We’re working with the state to get grants and funding to help these ranchers,” Schwartz said.
Now, the residents of the affected counties are left to deal with the aftermath of the wildfires and the many effects that have come with them. In many cities, the residents have been coming together to help one another and show support.
“It’s been such a blessing and…neighbors in other states and family and friends that have come from different states, you know, just to help us out has been overwhelming,” Loomis said. “We’ve definitely been blessed and overwhelmed just [with] people’s actions and care and love and support has been great.”
Some ranchers, like Loomis and her family, plan on rebuilding what they had on their ranch before the fires. This process isn’t always quick and easy, but can look like small daily steps of making phone calls or small projects that can help the future of the ranch.
“We are not quitting by any means,” Loomis said. “I mean, this is just kind of like a little bit of a hurdle in our ranch life…we’re going to rebuild, and it will be even better.”