By the Associated Press:
Firefighters across the country are battling growing wildfires as tinder-dry conditions and high winds whip up flames from Arizona to Florida.
That includes a wildfire in rural southwestern Nebraska that officials say has killed one person, injured at least 15 firefighters and destroyed at least six homes.
A retired Cambridge, Nebraska, fire chief who was helping as a fire spotter in Red Willow County died Friday night after his truck went off the road in a blinding haze of smoke and dust. The body of John Trumble, 66, of Arapahoe, was recovered around early Saturday.
Trumble was the second person to die within a month while fighting wildfires in southwest Nebraska. Elwood Volunteer Fire Chief Darren Krull, 54, was killed in a collision with a water tanker on April 7 in Furnas County as smoke cut visibility to zero.
Nearly a dozen new large fires were reported over the weekend across the nation four in New Mexico, three in Colorado and one each in Florida, Nebraska, South Dakota and Texas. With more than 1,350 square miles burned so far this year, officials at the National Interagency Fire Center said the amount of land singed so far is outpacing the 10-year average by about 30%.
