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Dakota combined, roaring through an expanse of jagged buttes and pine trees that's nearly the size of Omaha.
• "Yesterday, we were a little worried," said Bill Kight, a spokesman for the emergency response team. "But great progress was made, so today things look really good for us."
• The Wellnitz fire spread to South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where it scorched 44 square miles -- an area almost as large as Rapid City. State and federal authorities joined forces with nearly 40 volunteer fire departments from Nebraska and seven from South Dakota.
• The fire destroyed two mobile homes on the reservation. One was unoccupied; the other belonged to a family that lived three miles west of Pine Ridge -- a town of about 3,300 and the largest population center on the isolated reservation.
• The blaze would have destroyed other homes if not for outside emergency crews, said Oglala Sioux Tribe Emergency Management Director Wayne Weston.
• "The fire was heading directly toward a housing development, but the firefighters did a fantastic job," Weston said. "The cooperation between the state of Nebraska, South Dakota and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is the best I've ever experienced."
• Weston said the Red Cross was helping the displaced family, and the tribe was planning to place them in another home.
• Emergency crews warned that at least 100 power-line poles were damaged or destroyed in the fire, and the downed lines may still pose a danger to the public. And they said trees damaged by the fire could fall without warning. Tribal officials were also concerned now about fire damage to a buffalo-grazing pasture, which (Continued on page 19)
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