Wildfire near Custer damages 10 properties, authorities say

(SOUTH DAKOTA SEARCHLIGHT) – A wildfire that’s grown to more than 11 square miles near the city of Custer in South Dakota’s Black Hills had not caused any injuries as of Saturday night but had damaged about 10 properties, the Custer County Sheriff’s Office said.

The damage ranges from sheds and garages “all the way up to some homes being lost,” said Sgt. Derrick Reifenrath in a video update on Facebook about the Qury Fire.

He said local road closures remained in effect and asked for patience as firefighting continued and hazards from heavy smoke and potentially falling trees remained.

But he said authorities would be allowing some people to visit their property if they pick up a tag at the Custer County Search and Rescue office. The tag will allow them to legally go around barricades, Reifenrath said.

He issued a warning to operators of all-terrain vehicles and side-by-side vehicles who were illegally driving on areas of the forest that firefighters cleared with bulldozers.

“You will be stopped, your name will be given to the Forest Service, and I assure you that they will prosecute you on that,” Reifenrath said.

What he called “dozer cuts” are parts of a vegetation-free line that firefighters are trying to achieve around the fire to halt its progress. Other segments could consist of lines cut by hand with shovels, as well as roads and natural barriers such as streams and rock outcroppings.

By Sunday morning, authorities said the firefighting force had grown to about 280 personnel. They estimated 2% of the fire was contained, while snow and higher humidity that moved into the area Saturday were expected to aid firefighting efforts, to a point. Too much snow could hinder firefighters’ movements, said the U.S. Forest Service’s Adam Ziegler during a Custer community meeting livestreamed to Facebook on Saturday.

Temporary flight restrictions remain in place. “Please do not fly any unauthorized aircraft over the fire,” said a news release from authorities. “If you fly, we can’t.”

News releases about the fire from state and federal officials have said the cause is under investigation. The Qury Fire started Thursday in a forested, mountainous area about 2 miles southeast of Custer in the southern Black Hills, where the winter has been unusually warm and dry. The fire’s size by Sunday morning was estimated at 7,200 acres.

On Friday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency authorized the use of federal funding to fight the fire. At the time, FEMA reported that the fire was threatening more than 100 homes in the vicinity of Custer, as well as bridges, utilities, and radio and cellphone towers. Mandatory evacuations were in place for more than 100 people and a shelter had been opened in Custer.

The funding authorization makes FEMA funding available to pay 75% of the state’s eligible firefighting costs under a grant for managing, mitigating and controlling designated fires. The grant does not provide assistance to individual home or business owners, FEMA said, and does not cover other infrastructure damage caused by the fire.

How to find up-to-date Qury Fire information

For the most up-to-date information on Qury Fire evacuations and road closures, authorities are directing people to the Custer County Sheriff’s Office and its Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/custercountysd.

Authorities are also updating a Facebook page created for the fire at https://www.facebook.com/QuryFire2026/, and information is available on the InciWeb interagency fire website at https://inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-information/sdbkf-qury-Fire.

Fire information is available by phone at (605) 673-8155 and by email at 2026.qury@firenet.gov.

Seth is editor-in-chief of South Dakota Searchlight. He was previously a supervising senior producer for South Dakota Public Broadcasting and a newspaper journalist in Rapid City and Mitchell.

South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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