Fire on the Mountain
It all started when Sam and I went down the hill to work on a new section of hiking train. I was putting up trail markers when Sam came running down to me with her version of Lassie's "Timmy is in the well". She kept looking up the hill and barking. So, I followed her back up the trail and there it was: a wall of orange flames and the crackling of burning twigs.
The assesment took of about 5 seconds before I called 911 on the cell phone I had with me. I told the operator that we had a brush fire and she wanted to know if it was out of control. I assured her that indeed it was. She said she was sending help. And, boy, did she!
Now Alleghany County might be one of the smallest counties in North Carolina, but let me tell you something. Our emergency services are as good as they get. Within about 10 minutes, the Sparta/Alleghany VFD under Chief Terry McGrady was here, pumping water to keep the fire from getting over the ledge to the house. Then came the Cherry Lane VFD and the Laurel Springs VFD. Soon thereafter the Wilkes County VFD arrived to protect the neighbor's houses. The roads up the mountain was sealed off to spectators. The EMS squad was stationed nearby. Everyone knew their job and did it well.
Sometime while all this was going on Russell Choate, the local fire warden with the North Carolina Foresty Service arrived. With professionalism and authority he assured the CFO and I that our help was not needed in fighting the fire. As he calmly and logically explained, if the fire crew did not have to keep track of us, there would be two more firefighters available to fight the fire. So, we watched the whole show from the deck and, alas, have no photographs of the actual fire itself.
Conditions were ideal for a fire yesterday. The ground was extremely dry, the humidity at the time of the fire was 18% and a stiff breeze was blowing out of the northwest. So basically the duff in the whole area on the next ledge below the house where trees had been cut to clear the view was burning. The long dead limbs and trunks fueled the flames that spread though the leaves.
A few really hot spots developed before the cavalry arrived from Hickory, under the supervision of Jeff Burns, District Ranger, in a big, yellow Forest Service Huey helicopter flown by two Vietnam Era pilots. Aboard was an elite crew of Forestery Service firefighters who, as it turns out, just happen to be prison inmates. After landing in a field above the house to discharge the firefighters, the helicopter was off in search of water. Watching the pilots drop 1500 gallons of pond water at a pop on a fire on the side of the hill, at close range, in run after run was quite a show.
Fortunately, the fire was no match and soon the crew of about 30 in total was digging a fire break around the entire burned area of about 1/2 acre. They were finished by 7:30 and hoses were brought in to wet down the fire break. Shortly thereafter the Red Cross arrived with supper for the firemen. A bank of lights was wheeled in and the equipment was loaded back onto the trucks well after dark.
Ranger Burns admonished me for smoking cigars in the woods, and I made a sizeable cash contribution to the Sparta/Alleghany VFD before they left.
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