Author: Hunter Bassler

A wildfire has burned nearly 600,000 acres of land in and around a vitally important national wildlife refuge in Nebraska, becoming the state’s largest wildfire ever recorded since igniting on March 12.

The Morrill Fire traveled over 70 miles in under 12 hours after starting in the state’s Morrill County, triggering numerous evacuations and the activation of agricultural irrigation systems, according to fire crews working the scene. Gov. Jim Pillen has since issued an emergency proclamation and statewide burn ban in response to the Morrill Fire and the Cottonwood Fire, which has burned over 121,000 acres southeast of Morrill.

There are currently four major active fires across Nebraska, in a week that recorded more than two dozen fire starts. For updates, follow the Facebook page of the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency. The Nebraska-based Salvation Army Western Division announced on Sunday that it is raising funds in response to the wildfires in western and central Nebraska.

UPDATE – 24 March 2026: Information from Watch Duty Tuesday evening said the Morrill Fire was 98% contained, the Cottonwood Fire is 98% contained and the Road 203 Fire was 90% contained. All remain at Active status. Weather is favorable and fire behavior is minimal.

Both 100 and 1000-hour fuel moistures are at historic low levels in the area, making tall grass and invasive red cedar in the area potent fuel for the Morrill Fire, crews said. Despite single-digit temperatures and the presence of snow in the area, gusts over 50 mph are expected to increase fire spread, especially with more dry weather and near record-high temperatures forecast later in the week.

The vast majority of the Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge has burned in the Morrill Fire, infrared flyover maps show. The refuge is located in the Nebraska Sandhills, labeled by researchers as the world’s most important intact prairie due to its status as one of the world’s last large native prairies that has not substantially been modified or converted to farmland.

Managers at the refuge and local private landowners have been utilizing prescribed burns in the area to manage specific grasses and improve the habitat for various plant and animal species that call the refuge’s 21 wetland complexes home, many of which were present before European colonization of the area began.

Fire has also been used to protect the prairie against its gravest immediate threat of woody encroachment, including red cedars. Apart from fueling massive fires like the Morrill Fire, the trees also displace grasslands grazed by livestock and enjoyed by native wildlife, according to University of Nebraska researchers.

“They’re all losing ground to woody plants,” Professor of Agronomy and Horticulture Dirac Twidwell said of the prairie in a 2022 article. “We are going to lose those regions if we don’t halt that expansion. The evidence shows that we are not doing a good enough job conserving North America’s grasslands. We have to re-evaluate our conservation mindset if we are actually going to prove that we can conserve this biome within a private-lands ideology.”

The European Union is walking back claims that it is forming a new continent-wide wildfire-fighting force two weeks after a top commissioner announced it.

As reported by Wildfire Today, EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra announced the Union’s new “rapid reaction force” at a press conference on February 6. Hoekstra specifically said the force would be made up of 300 firefighters from across the Union’s 27-member bloc.

“It is a clear sign of solidarity and that we want to tackle this together,” Hoekstra said at the press conference following a meeting of EU environment and climate ministers in the Cypriot capital.

The European Commission has now distanced itself from the comments, saying Hoekstra misspoke and that there is no new 300-firefighter force being created or deployed. Hoekstra was actually talking systems already in place across the Union, which, as outlined by Wildfire Today, are extensive and well established.

“Commissioner Hoekstra was referring to the existing EU system that pools national firefighting resources – including personnel and equipment – to respond rapidly to wildfires across Europe under the EU Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM),” a Commission spokesperson told Wildfire Today in an emailed response.

The spokesperson said that the system includes the year-round European Civil Protection Pool, which includes more than 600 EU-certified firefighting teams and vehicles, 700 other firefighters who are strategically pre-positioned in high-risk areas, and the EU disaster response assets, which include 12 firefighting planes and 5 helicopters.

Wildfire Today has been reporting on the development of a “rapid reaction force” in the EU for years, with the 2008 report that the European Commission passed a resolution to create “the “…a European force that could immediately react in emergencies”.

The EU has also organized firefighting teams and an aircraft fleet for years through its Civil Protection Mechanism and 24/7 Emergency Response Coordination Centre. Countries activated the mechanism 18 times as of September of 2025, a record number of requests from member countries, including the first-ever request from Spain. In total, the EU deployed 38 airplanes, 20 helicopters, and more than 760 personnel to numerous countries.

Roads have long played an important role in managing fires on public lands, but newly published research found that roads have also increased wildfire ignitions and ecosystem damage.

The scientific study, published by members of the Wilderness Society in Springer Nature’s Fire Ecology Journal, examined patterns of fire size in a nationwide dataset of U.S. Forest Service regions from 1992 to 2024.

The researchers found that the highest wildfire-ignition density among the lands studied was in lands within 164 feet of roads, at just under 8 fires per 2,471 acres, while the second highest wildfire-ignition density was in other national forest lands outside the 164-foot buffer, but not in wilderness or roadless areas, at 3.5 fires per 2,471 acres. Wildfire-ignition density was at its lowest in designated wilderness areas without roads, at 1.75 fires per 2,471 acres.

The study’s lead author, Wilderness Society Senior Forest Scientist Greg Aplet, told Wildfire Today that the study’s findings directly contradict the US administration’s plans to rescind the federal “roadless rule,” which has blocked logging of national forest lands since 2001. The administration claims the removal of prohibitions on road construction and timber harvest within the National Forest System would allow for more fire prevention.

“Opening the door for more roads and logging in our country’s most intact, backcountry forests isn’t a wildfire solution, and it never will be,” Aplet told Wildfire Today in an emailed statement. “Despite what the administration says, the Roadless Rule repeal has nothing to do with keeping our communities safe from wildfire. It’s a backdoor agreement that will hand millions of acres of our protected public lands to private industry.”

Aplet said the research confirms that more roads mean more human activity and more wildfires in the nation’s previously protected lands. He also said he hopes this research leads the administration to base its policy reforms on sound science.

That’s a high hope, considering the U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins previously labeled the rule as an “absurd obstacle.”

“This move opens a new era of consistency and sustainability for our nation’s forests,” Rollins said in the department’s original announcement in June 2025. “It is abundantly clear that properly managing our forests preserves them from devastating fires and allows future generations of Americans to enjoy and reap the benefits of this great land.”

Click here to read the full research study.