861 square miles of land have burned
Wildfires continue to burn north of Hutchinson, Kan., Tuesday, March 7, 2017. The view looks southwest along K61 showing smoke billowing from a burning fire. Crews grappling with vexing wildfires that have charred hundreds of square miles of land in four states and killed multiple people soon may get a bit of a break: Winds are forecast to ease from the gusts that whipped the flames. (Travis Morisse/The Hutchinson News via AP)
HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — A massive grass fire raging in two Kansas counties has set a state record for the biggest involving a single blaze.
Kansas Division of Emergency Management spokeswoman Katie Horner says an estimated 861 square miles of land have been blackened in Comanche and Clark counties as of Wednesday. The 625 square miles charred in Clark County is about 85 percent of that county’s land.
Horner says the previous record came last year, with the Anderson Creek fire consuming 488 square miles of land in Barber and Comanche counties.
Horner says that since Saturday, large grassfires have been reported in 23 Kansas counties, consuming more than 1,000 square miles.
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