FIRE DANGER: Rain forecast for Saturday should give firefighters a break
Alan Hawes // The Post and Courier
Isle of Palms firefighters keep on eye on a hot spot Thursday as they wait for a Mount Pleasant Fire Department brush truck to arrive with water along Rutledge Road near the Germantown community.
Friday update:
• Authorities hope to have the McClellanville fire on the Georgetown and Charleston county line 100 percent contained by today or tomorrow, according to the S.C. Forestry Commission.
In the latest update on what is being called the "Windy Fire," the commission reports that the fire is 95 percent contained and that it has destroyed about 2,600 acres of timber land.
Fire Commission fire trucks and dozers are prioritizing the troublesome bay area where the fire is least contained. There are 12 pieces of heavy equipment and approximately 40 personnel remaining on duty to fight the blaze, according to the press release. Cooperating fire departments are patrolling for hot spots.
State forester Gene Kodama has put preliminary estimates on timber losses to land owners at between $1.5 to $2 million.
The release also says that improving weather conditions are allowing for significant progress, specifically the humidity is up and the winds are down.
• The gusty winds have died down and are now coming in off the sea. The air is wetter. That should tamp down the threat of wildfires for the time being, forestry officials and weather forecasters said today. And rainfall Saturday should give worn out firefighters a break.
But the state, and the coastal plain particularly, could face another month of wildfire threat, at least.
While the McClellanville fire was considered 95 percent contained as of this morning, the Dorchester fire was about 90 percent contained, Dorchester County Fire Coordinator John Ekaitis said.
Ekaitis said firefighters stopped actively fighting the fire shortly before midnight Thursday but are monitoring it today. He said the fire had burned more than 400 acres Thursday night but a final figure wasn't available.
The fires are the most recent among more than 2,300 wildfires already for the state this fiscal year. Last year, about 1,800 fires were reported for the entire July-June year. Dry winter conditions had fire officials warning of the threat for the past few months.
"It's certainly the worst season that we've had in the last four, five years," said Darryl Jones, forestry commission forest protection chief.
-Bo Petersen
The previous story continues below:
Residents throughout the Lowcountry looked to the sky and hoped for rain Thursday for relief from multiple wildfires.
A fire in upper Dorchester County that was estimated in the afternoon to be only 60 acres had grown to more than 500 acres by nightfall.
Meanwhile, the size of the fire north of McClellanville had more than doubled.
Richard Wineglass of the Germantown community felt sure that disaster was near Wednesday as he watched 40-foot flames chew through tall pines like kindling.
“I really thought a bomb had gone off somewhere,” Wineglass said. “I ain’t never seen a fire like that in my whole life, and I’m 80 years old. It was the worst I’ve ever seen.”
But just as calamity seemed certain Wednesday night, the community’s fortunes turned as an army of firefighters kept the blaze from reaching homes and frightened residents.
By Thursday afternoon, many residents were offering thanks and breathing easier as the worst of the fire seemed to have passed with no homes or lives lost.
Fire crews had contained about 85 percent of the blaze, which had spread over 2,600 acres. By comparison, in April 2009, an Horry County wildfire evidently sparked from a backyard burn devoured 19,000 acres and caused $25 million in damages.
The McClellanville fire is the largest along the Lowcountry coast in a decade, according to the S.C. Forestry Commission. The fire is burning between Old Georgetown Road, U.S. Highway 17 and the South Santee River.
Investigators still are trying to determine the cause of the blaze.
“Today, it seems like folks should just be happy to see another day, because yesterday was quite gloomy,” said Ben Lawrence, who lives on Rutledge Road. “It was just horrifying.”
Authorities had reopened U.S. 17 to traffic, but signs warned motorists of smoky conditions. A thick haze lingered over the landscape for much of the day, and a large plume of smoke mushroomed above the tree line. Fire officials planned to close the highway again at midnight because of low visibility.
Despite their progress, fire crews weren’t letting down their guard. Dozens of firefighters from a host of area fire departments fanned out across the area to find and put out hot spots, while forestry crews with tractor plows and other gear dug trenches and fortified fire lines.
Exhausted firefighters who worked through the night Wednesday were replaced in the morning by fresh crews.
Additional resources were being called in late in the day, and fresh crews were being told to prepare for a five-day detail, though officials expect the blaze to be contained sooner than that, according to commission spokesman Scott Hawkins.
Mike Prevost, president of White Oak Forestry Corp. in Georgetown, said about 1,000 acres of the company’s timberland in Charleston County was burned, but it is too soon to tell if all of those trees will be lost.
Prevost praised all who fought the blaze. “The South Carolina Forestry Commission has done a tremendous job, as has a multitude of local fire departments,” he said. “They’ve mobilized to protect the communities. It’s been a great effort.”
A prescribed burn performed several weeks ago may have spared historic St. James Santee Church and its cemetery, he said.
In Dorchester County, state and local firefighters were battling a wildfire off Sandridge and Wire roads late Thursday. Forestry officials estimated its size at between 500 and 1,000 acres, Hawkins said.
“This was a big fire,” said John Smith of Barricade Lane in the Dorchester community. “We were fighting fire like you wouldn’t believe.”
Smith said he saw flames in the tree-tops, 50 to 60 feet in the air.
He has horses and chickens and had moved them to safer quarters. All the woods around his property were scorched by the fire.
Hawkins said the fire in Dorchester was about 70 percent contained. He said 30 homes were saved and none were lost. The fire’s cause hasn’t been determined.
Smoke was expected to reduce visibility overnight, especially in Summerville, Jedburg and Givhans, the National Weather Service said. The smell of smoke will extend to West Ashley, North Charleston and perhaps even peninsular Charleston.
Dry conditions and strong winds made conditions ripe for fires to take root and spread quickly.
In the McClellanville fire, a number of hot spots were spread throughout the thick, sprawling forest, prompting forestry officials to bring in a plane to help survey the area and determine where crews needed to go, said state forester Gene Kodama.
“The key is having adequate staff and equipment to deal with it,” Kodama said. “It’s impossible if you don’t have those things.”
Sam Campbell of South Santee kept his distance from the McClellanville fire. He had watched the fire get within a mile of his home on Wednesday.
He said conditions have been extremely dry lately. “If you are going to try to do yard burning, you’re out of your mind,” Campbell said. “The wind gets hold of it and it just takes off.”
Campbell was one of several people who had trouble getting home Wednesday night. He was told he could not go down U.S. 17, even when he informed authorities that his wife was home alone.
He said he finally used back roads that locals know to get home. “I told the officer to have a blessed day, and then I kept going, because I knew something he didn’t know,” Campbell said.
Ricky Frasier also chose to stand by his mobile home in Germantown rather than heed a voluntary evacuation called for the area. He just hoped for the best and was relieved that the fire stopped just short of his street.
That doesn’t mean the experience didn’t rattle him though.
“There ain’t no shame in being scared,” he said. “And hell yeah, I got scared.”
