On February 26, GrayBull Golf Club was caught amidst a wildfire that ran rampant across the Sandhills of Nebraska. The wildfire was believed to be caused by a lawnmower and began to spread quickly by high winds of 40 to 50 miles per hour.

At around 10:30 a.m., GrayBull’s director of agronomy, Michael Sheely, spotted the fire in the distance as the dark smoke began to rise. As the wildfire began to spread towards the course, Sheeley instructed his team to turn the irrigation system on “full blast.” It is noted that GrayBull installed a Rain Bird® Integrated Control System (IC System) partly as a “safeguard against wildfires.”

“If we’d had a satellite system,” Sheely says, “it would have gone up in flames. It torched everything right up to the edge of the fairways. But the golf course itself is untouched.”

By 8 p.m., the fire on the course was extinguished. Fortunately, the infrastructure and golf course were practically untouched. By February 27, it was stated that the wildfire was “72 percent contained” and there were no casualties.

This story was originally reported by Golf.com.

Read more on the GrayBull website.