Progress made, but 'this fire is not done'

Photo Gallery

Myrtle Beach Wildfire Friday

Firefighters continued to battle a wildfire in Horry County as residents return to their burned homes.

NORTH MYRTLE BEACH — A ferocious wildfire that has scorched nearly 20,000 acres and caused at least $16 million in damage here began in the backyard of a home eight miles inland — and a world away from the resort homes hit hardest by the flames.

The yard belongs to Mark Torchi and Megan Brogan, and Friday afternoon, with the woods still smoldering around her home, Brogan told The Post and Courier that people shouldn't blame them for what happened.

The roots of this week's wildfire — the worst South Carolina has seen in three decades, destroying 69 homes — actually began last Saturday, she and fire officials said. Brogan said her husband built a trash fire behind their home that day.

"Yes, the only thing we did wrong was that we didn't get a burn permit, but that happens all the time in the country." When the fire accidentally got into the woods, she said she immediately called 911. "We called 911 and they were supposed to put out the fire. That's what we pay our taxes for."

Firefighters with Horry County Fire and Rescue responded quickly, but she felt they could have done more to prevent the fire from reigniting. "I totally blame the Horry County Fire Department because they could have soaked up the whole woods around here," she said, pointing to a hydrant in front of her home. "But they never used that hydrant."

Horry County firefighters who responded last Saturday to Woodlawn Drive thought they had put out the fire until it flared up with high winds and dry conditions Wednesday.

"Nothing was happening that anybody noticed. We responded on Wednesday with the firefighters when we learned it was spreading," said Russell Hubright of the state Forestry Commission, who is based in Columbia. "In fairness to these guys (Horry County firefighters), they put out hundreds of these fires every year. Why this one rekindled is a little bit of a mystery."

On Wednesday, high winds hit the area, and the fire behind her house quickly spread to the woods and the rest of her neighborhood, a mix of mobile homes and modest vinyl-sided houses.

Fire spreads

From her backyard, the fire traveled more than 10 miles in two days, consuming 31 square miles of forest and subdivisions, an area roughly three times the size of the Charleston peninsula. The fire traveled as far east as Barefoot Resort and Grande Dunes golf club, which at one point used sprinklers to prevent the links from going up in smoke, officials said.

Paul Whitman, Horry County's Director of Public Safety, said low winds and a temperature inversion early Friday morning helped keep the fire tamped down, though at times visibility from the heavy smoke made it impossible to see your hand in front of your face. Despite the scale and intensity of the fire, no serious injuries or fatalities had been reported.

Whitman said emergency crews used NASA satellite images to pinpoint hotspots and help them decide where to dispatch crews and helicopters. More than 450 firefighters from 33 agencies across South Carolina and North Carolina, including crews from North Charleston, Charleston, Isle of Palms and Summerville, were on the scene Friday. More than 30 volunteers helped evacuate several dozen horses and other animals.

Whitman said he was worried that coastal winds and higher temperatures would push the fire from the Lewis Bay Ocean Heritage Preserve, an unpopulated area on the outskirts of North Myrtle Beach, to the Poplar and Wampee communities, where several thousand people live. "This fire is not done," he said. "We have several days to go."

But Friday afternoon, as ash drifted into North Carolina, officials were becoming more optimistic about getting the fire under control.

'Tornado and a fire'

Officials said late Friday that firefighters had the wildfire had been 80 percent contained after ridding the area of underbrush that serves as fuel.

Breezes were keeping the fire inland, still away from the main tourist areas.

Crews continued to plow firebreaks into critical areas and burn underbrush and trees ahead of the blaze to rob its fuel. They hoped the winds would stay calm into this morning, said state Forestry Commission spokeswoman Holly Welch.

Still, winds were expected to increase after sunrise and the fire remained dangerous.

"If just one ember gets out in front of a firebreak, this thingcould flare back up quickly," Welch said.

Pete Rogers of Awendaw, a public information officer for the Lowcountry Incident Management Team, said his crew was told it could go back home to Charleston. "If you are going home, that means there's a light at the end of the tunnel."

Gov. Mark Sanford flew over fire area Friday and then visited the North Myrtle Beach neighborhood where dozens of homes were destroyed. Later, at a press briefing in Conway, he said half of the wildfire was under control, but that "the storm is not over." He said the blaze had caused $16 million in damage and that he expected that number to rise.

"It was like a tornado and a fire," he said of the damage in Barefoot Resort, a subdivision along the Intracoastal Waterway that was hit hard. "This is cataclysmic damage to individual homes but not on a scale of a hurricane."

Sanford added that people should focus now on fighting the fire instead of finding someone to blame. He says once the flames are out, he will ask for a review of everything that happened.

Did what they could

The neighborhood where the fire began is off S.C. Highway 90, a country road that leads out of Conway toward the swamps of the Waccamaw River.

Friday afternoon, white smoke still drifted from nearby stumps as Brogan, 29, said she was furious that people are blaming her family for the disaster.

When the trash fire got out of control last Saturday in her backyard, she immediately called 911. "What else are we supposed to do?"

Torchi, 39, said late Friday he fears for his family because people are upset about the damage. Brogan said the family has received death threats.

Several neighbors said that it was wrong to blame Torchi and Brogan for the fire.

Al Whittaker said firefighters spent several hours putting out the fire last Saturday after Torchi's yard debris fire started to spread into the brush by his home.

"They didn't come in with a bulldozer or anything," Whittaker said. "Sunday, Monday and Tuesday goes by. How come nobody comes by and checks? ... How is this thing coming back on him five days later? It's one of the more twisted, insensible things I've heard."

Forestry Commission Forest Protection Chief Darryl Jones said it's common for brush fires to appear to be out but then smolder underground and rekindle. But he said blame belongs to the person who set it. "The Fire Department didn't start the fire," Jones said. "Someone lit it and somebody let it escape and that's where this all started."

The Forestry Commission ticketed Torchi for last Saturday's fire, not the one that reignited Wednesday. He was cited for failing to notify the commission of an outdoor burn, which carries a fine up to $262.50, as well as for allowing the fire to spread, which carries a fine up to $470. Hubright said no additional tickets will be issued.

Brogan said when the fire reignited Wednesday, it built quickly. She said Horry County firefighters watched as the flames headed toward nearby homes. "The only reason my house didn't burn down is that my neighbors and I got a garden hose and put water on the house."

Horry County Fire and Rescue Chief Gary Alderman said firefighters often let woods fires burn close to the house and let the flames consume fuel before they attack it in force. Sometimes the flames are so powerful, however, that firefighters have to practice a form of triage, letting some houses go that can't be saved. "It's often a split-second decision," he said. "For every house that was destroyed, we saved six others."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

FOLLOW THIS STORY

Go to postandcourier.com/mbfires to follow twitter feeds about the fire.