June/July 2026 NEBRASKA CATTLEMAN 13 on fire, so I couldn’t get to the north side of the fire where our house is. So, we stayed on the south side and helped the neighbors move cattle out of the path of the fire.” While this was going on, her husband and oldest son were trying to get home, but the fire was outrunning their pickup. “By the time they made it to our home place, the fire had already blown through, and things were actively on fire,” Loomis says. “All of our hay was on fire, the trees, our corrals. It was all burning.” Cade ran up to the tallest hill next to the house and managed to get a call out to his mom, letting her know what was going on and asking her to please send fire trucks to the home place, because there were no fire trucks in sight. Luckily Loomis managed to get a hold of the fire department and got an escort home with the fire trucks. “That was just a big, active inferno, actually. It was so stressful, with the chaos and adrenaline,” Loomis recounts. The Loomis family lost 85 percent of their pastureland to the fire. Those 70 mile-per-hour wind gusts had the fire traveling miles across the prairie, outracing many fire rigs that were attempting to navigate unfamiliar roads. By this time, fire departments from the surrounding area had shown up in full force to try to contain The Beast, or at the very least, save as many structures as they could. “Our primary goal for probably the first 12 hours of the fire was basically just trying to stage around ranch houses and structures and get those saved,” says rancher and Rackett Fire Department member Jim Rice. Fire departments raced to save as many homes and structures as possible. “With the fire being so massive, we didn’t really have resources,” Rice explains. “Everybody was spread so thin, and the fire just got away from us. Friday, we had to evacuate my family but, luckily, the wind switched. By Friday night, we were just bracing for the worst. The temperatures dropped, and the wind, thank God, switched directions, and we were finally able to get a handle on it. We were able to save quite a few houses right in the Rackett community. “We did our best, but Mother Nature is the one who saved it. That little shift of the wind made a big difference.” With the winds constantly switching directions throughout the fire, The Beast was extremely unpredictable. “I’ve lived up here most of my life. We are prone to grass fires in this area every spring and fall,” Rice says. “But I’ve never witnessed anything like that fire. It was just really a perfect storm for fire.” Cottonwood Fire Within hours of the Morrill Fire starting, the Cottonwood Fire came to life as well, eventually traveling across Dawson, Lincoln and Frontier counties. Collin Thompson hoped the haze on the horizon was dust from someone farming, but the feeling in his gut told him to The Loomis’ hay, trees and corrals burned, but their house was saved. Photo Courtesy of Naomi Loomis. Aerial views of the fire’s path show vast swaths of blackened area and bare ground where the soot has already blown away. Photo Courtesy of Collin Thompson. CONTINUED ON PAGE 14
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