Janklow made some around the fire hot

Iâ��wasn’t around Custer yet when the Jasper Fire was started Aug. 24, 2000. On Aug. 24, 2000, I had just started the final semester of my collegiate career, as I needed 12 more credit hours of nothing in particular to receive my degree from Chadron State College. Iâ��challenged myself with courses such as first aid and golf for three months, before being forced off into the real world to find a real job and pay real bills.

Iâ��don’t even recall hearing about the Jasper Fire that semester at CSC, even though it was burning only around 100 miles away. I have heard stories about it, saw photos of it and read about it in the years since I arrived in Custer, but nothing more than a passing glance, and nothing overly in depth. That’s why when we decided we were going to do some stories on the 10th anniversary of the fire, I volunteered to write them. It was something I didn’t know a great deal about, and I enjoy hearing stories about major events from the people who were on the scene.

Iâ��interviewed numerous people for the story, dug through a lot of research both online and in the old Chronicles, and hopefully came out with some stories that will bring the fire back to life—this time without consequence—for those who were in Custer at the time, and create some imagery of what the fire was like for those who, like me, weren’t here when the fire was burning.

Early on in the interview process, I noticed one theme kept cropping up from those I talked to—the meddling of former Gov. Bill Janklow in the suppression of the fire. The very first call I made, one of the first comments out of their mouths were how Janklow made things more difficult than they needed to be in fighting the fire. I laughed and didn’t write down the comments at the request of the person Iâ��was interviewing. The more calls I made, the more of these phrases I heard: