This past March, a wildfire caused by high winds and a smoldering brush pile tore through 130 acres in Yates Center, consuming the Yates Center Health and Rehabilitation Center, a senior living facility, and causing nearly $5 million in damage. All residents were safely evacuated, but their home burned to the ground. Dense stands of eastern red cedar trees near the building provided ample kindling for the blaze. “The fire jumped the road and got into the cedars,” Yates Center Fire Chief Brandon Gaulding told KOAM News. “It went through the cedars so fast that by the time we got to the nursing home, we tried to do everything we could to save it, but the wind was too much.” The highly flammable trees are everywhere in Kansas, including places they never used to grow.
Read more: The Iola Register
