ickelKansas Agland
The last thing Greg Gardiner saw before everything went black was his brother Mark heading to the horse barn.
Fire and smoke was spreading through Clark County from the southwest Monday afternoon. By 3 p.m., the ranch was in the war zone. An orange firewall was heading toward his brother’s home as Greg pulled up with a truck and trailer to help save three horses.
“I knew it was too late,” Greg said.
Then Greg lost them in the darkness from the s
moke and dirt. His own vision was clouded by it. The seriousness of the situation hit. If he didn’t get out of there – he might not make it out alive.
With the compass in his head telling him where he was, he fled. He began to try to drive out of the fire – through the flying embers and passing by the small pockets of flames. A shelter belt exploded as he was leaving.
His guilt was growing. He had left Mark and Eva behind.
“When I got out, the fireman thought I was the last man out,” Greg said. But he yelled through the noise of cracking flames.
“They are still down there. Mark and Eva – they are still down there.”
For 30 minutes, as he and others congregated in the safety of a green wheat field, he agonized. His brother is his best friend – the family leader. He couldn’t run the ranch without him.
“For a half hour, I thought I’d be going back to see their charred bodies in the yard,” Greg said, tears flowing at the thought of it. “The rest of this is nothing. I can’t go forward without Mark.”
Then, just out of the dark, in the smoke and fire, a fireman appeared, taking off his mask.
“It’s all clear,” the man said into his radio. “They all made it out.”
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