As Harmon Maher walked along the Keystone Trail in central Omaha one morning in February, he spotted something odd: The creek next to the path, normally a gray-green color, ran bright orange.

It was full of sediment, probably from some construction upstream, the retired geology professor reasoned. Maher didn’t think much of it until hours later when his son alerted him to a mishap that was quickly becoming the talk of the town.

Mike Wintz was nearly 4 miles away and in the thick of fighting the Morrill Fire when he heard over the radio that the flames were headed for his home.

“I didn’t leave. I just basically fought my way back towards my ranch,” Wintz said. “A couple of the other outfits were headed to the house to kind of head it off … I just put my trust in the neighbors and the other firefighters.”

The group stopped the fire near Wintz’s front door, but the next day, the winds shifted, the fire flared and Wintz’s home was threatened a second time.