While Nebraskans cursed Saturday's smoky surprise from Kansas, a group of Flint Hills ranchers on horseback merrily flicked matches into the grass and watched it kindle.
Prescribed burns on North America's largest unplowed stretch of tallgrass prairie are paired with food and live music in an annual celebration at Flying W Ranch, about an hour northeast of Wichita.
The Flint Hills run from Manhattan, Kansas, all the way into northern Oklahoma. Ranchers there burn upward of 2.3 million hilly acres each spring to stave off invasive species like the eastern red cedar, preserve pasture, improve cattle forage and limit fuel for wildfires.
All that burning leads to complaints from the neighbors, particularly when southerly winds carry the smoke into Nebraska and atmospheric inversion traps it close to the ground.
Some might even want to sue.
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But this state has limited options in that regard, says Steve Mossman, a Lincoln attorney specializing in agricultural and environmental law.
Mossman doesn't believe Nebraska could successfully sue Kansas authorities to require them to crack down on prescribed burns, because courts are reluctant to force regulators to regulate against their will.
"That's a claim that rarely gets anywhere," he said Monday.
Individuals who experience loss — such as an asthmatic who suffers attacks or a sports club that cancels a tournament because of the smoke — might have a better case against the ranchers directly.
"It would be considered a common-law nuisance," Mossman said.
However, "You'd actually have to name names."
Such lawsuits require whoever files the suit to list every "necessary party," or the defendant can have the case dismissed. That means a Nebraskan couldn't just sue one or two ranchers if hundreds of landowners are burning all at once.
"You've got to sue everybody," Mossman said.
A better option is cooperation and communication between the states, he said.
"Perhaps there's some measures that could be taken in terms of timing, wind direction, that sort of thing that could possibly be helpful."
Kansas' management of the burns has grown more sophisticated in recent years, and the state adopted a formal smoke management plan in 2010.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment now provides daily updates during prime burning season -- March and April -- on how fires set on certain days are likely to hurt air quality in nearby population centers, including Lincoln and Omaha.
Yet a quick look at the map shows it's tough not to send smoke toward Nebraska's two largest cities if your main goal is to avoid Kansas City, Wichita or Topeka.
Jim Macy, executive director of the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality, said the two states have an "extremely good relationship" where both sides understand the importance of the fires as well as the need to limit their impact on air quality.
"I think they're trying to do it to where it isn't going to be impactful of any large community," Macy said.
An ideal scenario -- at least for Nebraska -- would be to send the smoke directly south, but Kansas' prevailing winds head north.
Another approach is to maximize the number of days for burning, to limit the kind of extreme, hazy onslaught that Southeast Nebraska experienced over the weekend.
"I think there's some really good, active discussions about spreading these fires out over a period of time longer than just a few weeks or days," Macy said.
Ranchers like to burn in spring to stimulate the growth of green grass for cattle, but Nebraska has found some common ground with groups interested in wildlife management and habitat, who suggest there are times in other seasons that can be good for burning, as well.
"That's a good thing for everybody, and it makes a lot of sense," Macy said.