North Dakota

Veeder: 'All of western North Dakota is on fire'

Published

1 month ago

October 11, 2024

Veeder: 'All of western North Dakota is on fire'

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — I stand on my back deck and look up at the night sky. The air is still and cool, and the stars are twinkling among the shine of the Northern Lights. It’s a welcome sight, a sort of calm before the restless night of sleep I would experience when I lay down that night beside my exhausted husband.

Just two days before, white and gray smoke billowed and bubbled and raged ominously from that same horizon to the northeast of our house, the high winds pushing a

massive wildfire away

and in our favor and saving us from having to worry about evacuation or trenching around our home.

Our phones buzzed, warning us that everything between mile marker 138 and 148 on Highway 22, and one mile west and east on each side needed to be evacuated.

Our ranch is three miles west of mile marker 135.

Residents from Mandaree, the little town just seven or so miles northeast of us as the crow flies, were told to leave as rural firefighters and Black Hawk helicopters worked to save it. I could see them from my back deck, black specks moving across the sky, the thick gray plumes of smoke making those helicopters look like children’s toys. It seemed like an impossible task as the wind kicked up 70 mph gusts, snapping powerlines and wreaking havoc across the prairie.

This image shows a map of the western North Dakota wildfires surrounding Jessie Veeder’s ranch.

Contributed / Jessie Veeder

Just an hour or so earlier that day, my friend 10 miles to the north of us looked out her kitchen window and saw smoke burning the corrals and old outbuildings of an abandoned homestead directly to the east of her. She called 911 in a panic.

All the rural firefighters she knew, including her husband, including mine, including dozens and dozens of other friends and community members, were fighting fires five or so miles to the north of her by our church on the other side of the Blue Buttes. She hung up with dispatch and called all the neighbors she could think of who could possibly be in its path and then loaded her kids in the car and sat helplessly watching the grass and trees catch fire.

The night before, around 2 a.m., all volunteer first responders who were available in our community were called to the scene of a fire that had erupted near the town of Arnegard. During the night, the winds had picked up to 50-60 mph, and it would take three days to get that fire contained while more and more resources were deployed and more fires sparked and spread.

That one fire was more than enough to handle, but in the next 24 hours, I heard my husband on the other end of the phone line say in his steady, stern voice: “All of western North Dakota is on fire.”

The Elkhorn fire, the Bear Den fire, the Charleson fire, the Arnegard fire, the Ray fire, the big ones … they all have names to us now, but in the heat of raging wind and black walls of smoke, to my husband and those on the front lines, it felt like everywhere they turned, there were more flames.

I looked to the north of the house, the east, the south, nearly every horizon was billowing smoke.

“It feels like we’re surrounded here, Chad,” I told him, hoping he had more information than I did that would reassure me that our place wasn’t in danger.

“Well, you are. You are surrounded,” he replied with a reality that many many more were facing, even more dangerously than us in that very moment.

In every direction, Jessie Veeder watched wildfire smoke surround her ranch.

I learned that sitting in our house with a direct line to social media reports from neighbors and emergency management offices, I might have had more information on the scope of the fires than the men and women focused on moving inch by inch in the black of the night and relentless howl of the wind, fighting for homes and land and the livelihoods that depend on it.

“I have never seen anything like this in my life,” my husband said as he drove his truck from one fire location to the next, trying to fill me in as best as he could when he could. “We can’t see anything out here, it’s like a black wall of smoke and dust. It’s absolutely out of control.”

I stood in the house, helpless and anxious. We had company from Bismarck. They had come to fill an Elk tag, but our fun weekend turned on a dime and we were left to distract one another, to feed one another, and to analyze and speculate and wait for the clock to hit 10 p.m. when the weather report promised a calmer wind.

My dad took to the hills to watch for any signs of new flames close to us. I watched my phone for any more updates. I called and texted neighbors. I worried about them. And then I worried about us. And then I worried about my husband and everyone out there in an unprecedented situation, doing the best they could against Mother Nature, who turns from companion to rival at the suck of a breath.

Volunteer firefighters like these from the Keene, North Dakota, fire department watched hot spots on Monday to prevent additional spread. Jessie Veeder’s husband Chad is third from left.

The winds did die down around 10 p.m., and it was close to 1 in the morning when my husband called and said he was headed home for now. My dad came off the hilltop. We all looked at my soot-covered, exhausted husband and waited for what he wanted to tell us.

The next day and the day after that, he was out again, mopping up flare-ups, assessing the damage, fixing the trucks, checking in. Some men have barely left the fire sites, too nervous to look away as the repercussions of a wind shift could put their houses in danger.

As I write this, some big flames are still raging in the badlands at the Elkhorn fire, putting ranches at risk and the National Guard to work. The Bear Den fire is contained but still burning. The wind shifts and dry conditions keep the first responders and ranchers watching the hot spots and continuing to put out flames. The helicopters land and take off and scoop water from Lake Sakakawea. The planes dump.

All across western North Dakota, a person will tell you their own story about these fires for years to come. Two men who lost their lives won’t get the chance. At least four homes were lost. Livestock were lost and killed. Early law enforcement reports indicate

nearly 90,000 acres in Williams County were destroyed,

with more in the surrounding counties.

My husband comes home from the fire hall and steps out on the deck next to me to watch those Northern Lights. His hair and skin smell like smoke and ashes. The light of two helicopters moved across the sky, little beacons of hope among the stars.

Just days after catastrophic wildfires burned through western North Dakota, a beautiful display of Northern Lights lit up the night sky.

READ MORE OF JESSIE’S COMING HOME COLUMNS

Greetings from the ranch in western North Dakota and thank you so much for reading. If you’re interested in more stories and reflections on rural living, its characters, heartbreaks, triumphs, absurdity and what it means to live, love and parent in the middle of nowhere, check out more of my Coming Home columns below. As always, I love to hear from you! Get in touch at jessieveeder@gmail.com.

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North Dakota

Port: Make families great again

Published

2 hours ago

November 23, 2024

Press Room

MINOT — Gov.-elect Kelly Armstrong is roaring into office with some political capital to spend. I have some ideas for how to spend it during next year’s legislative session.

It’s a three-pronged plan focused on children. I’m calling it “Make Families Great Again.” I’m no marketing genius, but I have been a dad for 24 years. There are some things the state could do to help.

The first is school lunches. The state should pay for them. The Legislature had a rollicking debate about this during the 2023 session. The opponents, who liken this to a handout, largely won the debate. Armstrong could put some muscle behind a new initiative to have the state take over payments. The social media gadflies might not like it, but it would prove deeply popular with the general public, especially if we neutralize the “handout” argument by reframing the debate.

North Dakota families are obligated to send their children to school. The kids have to eat. The lunch bills add up. I have two kids in public school. In the 2023-2024 school year, I paid $1,501.65 for lunches. That’s more than I pay in income taxes.

How much would it cost? In the 2023 session,

House Bill 1491

would have appropriated $89.5 million to cover the cost. The price tag would likely be similar now, but don’t consider it an expense so much as putting nearly $90 million back in the pockets of families with school-age children. A demographic that, thanks to inflation and other factors, could use some help.

Speaking of helping, the second plank of this plan is child care. This burgeoning cost is not just a millstone around young families’ necks but also hurts our state’s economy. We have a chronic workforce shortage, yet many North Dakotans are held out of the workforce because they either cannot find child care or because the care available is prohibitively expensive.

State leaders haven’t exactly been sitting on their hands. During the 2023 session, Gov. Doug Burgum signed

a $66 million child care package

focusing on assistance and incentives. We should do something bolder.

Maybe a direct tax credit to cover at least some of the expenses?

The last plank is getting vaccination rates back on track.

According to data from the state Department of Health,

the kindergarten-age vaccination rate for chicken pox declined 3.76% from the 2019-2020 school year. The rate for the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is down 3.72%, polio vaccines 3.54%, hepatitis B vaccines 2.27%, and the vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis 3.91%.

Meanwhile, personal and religious exemptions for kindergarten students have risen by nearly 69%.

This may be politically risky for Armstrong. Anti-vaxx crankery is on the rise among Republicans, but, again, Armstrong has some political capital to spend. This would be a helpful place for it. A campaign to turn vaccine rates around would help protect the kids from diseases that haven’t been a concern in generations. It would help address workforce needs as well.

When a sick kid can’t go to school or day care, parents can’t go to work.

These ideas are practical and bold and would do a great deal to help North Dakota families.

Rob Port is a news reporter, columnist, and podcast host for the Forum News Service with an extensive background in investigations and public records. He covers politics and government in North Dakota and the upper Midwest. Reach him at rport@forumcomm.com. Click here to subscribe to his Plain Talk podcast.

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North Dakota

North Dakota 77-73 Loyola Marymount (Nov 22, 2024) Game Recap – ESPN

Published

10 hours ago

November 23, 2024

Press Room

North Dakota 77-73 Loyola Marymount (Nov 22, 2024) Game Recap – ESPN

LOS ANGELES — — Treysen Eaglestaff had 23 points in North Dakota’s 77-73 win over Loyola Marymount on Friday night.

Eaglestaff also contributed five rebounds for the Fightin’ Hawks (3-2). Mier Panoam scored 16 points and added seven rebounds. Dariyus Woodson had 12 points.

The Lions (1-3) were led in scoring by Caleb Stone-Carrawell with 17 points. Alex Merkviladze added 16 points, eight rebounds, four assists and two steals. Will Johnston had 15 points and four assists.

North Dakota went into the half ahead of Loyola Marymount 36-32. Eaglestaff led North Dakota with 12 second-half points.

——

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.

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North Dakota

National monument proposed for North Dakota Badlands, with tribes' support

Published

18 hours ago

November 22, 2024

Press Room

National monument proposed for North Dakota Badlands, with tribes' support

BISMARCK, N.D. — A coalition of conservation groups and Native American tribal citizens on Friday called on President Joe Biden to designate nearly 140,000 acres of rugged, scenic Badlands as North Dakota’s first national monument, a proposal several tribal nations say would preserve the area’s indigenous and cultural heritage.

The proposed Maah Daah Hey National Monument would encompass 11 noncontiguous, newly designated units totaling 139,729 acres (56,546 hectares) in the Little Missouri National Grassland. The proposed units would hug the popular recreation trail of the same name and neighbor Theodore Roosevelt National Park, named for the 26th president who ranched and roamed in the Badlands as a young man in the 1880s.

“When you tell the story of landscape, you have to tell the story of people,” said Michael Barthelemy, an enrolled member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and director of Native American studies at Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College. “You have to tell the story of the people that first inhabited those places and the symbiotic relationship between the people and the landscape, how the people worked to shape the land and how the land worked to shape the people.”

The National Park Service oversees national monuments, which are similar to national parks and usually designated by the president to protect the landscape’s features.

Supporters have traveled twice to Washington to meet with White House, Interior Department, Forest Service and Department of Agriculture officials. But the effort faces an uphill battle with less than two months remaining in Biden’s term and potential headwinds in President-elect Donald Trump ‘s incoming administration.

If unsuccessful, the group would turn to the Trump administration “because we believe this is a good idea regardless of who’s president,” Dakota Resource Council Executive Director Scott Skokos said.

Dozens if not hundreds of oil and natural gas wells dot the landscape where the proposed monument would span, according to the supporters’ map. But the proposed units have no oil and gas leases, private inholdings or surface occupancy, and no grazing leases would be removed, said North Dakota Wildlife Federation Executive Director John Bradley.

This undated image provided by Jim Fuglie shows Bullion Butte in western North Dakota. Credit: AP/Jim Fuglie

The proposal is supported by the MHA Nation, the Spirit Lake Tribe and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe through council resolutions.

If created, the monument would help tribal citizens stay connected to their identity, said Democratic state Rep. Lisa Finley-DeVille, an MHA Nation enrolled member.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service, including national monuments. In a written statement, Burgum said: “North Dakota is proof that we can protect our precious parks, cultural heritage and natural resources AND responsibly develop our vast energy resources.”

North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven’s office said Friday was the first they had heard of the proposal, “but any effort that would make it harder for ranchers to operate and that could restrict multiple use, including energy development, is going to raise concerns with Senator Hoeven.”

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