Firemen battle blazes for three days

Welcome thunderstorms last week brought unwelcome wildfires with them and caused 16 volunteer firemen to log a combined 576 hours over three days.

First Assistant Chief Jeremy Powell with the Clarendon Volunteer Fire Department said storms that moved into Donley County about 9:15 p.m. last Wednesday, August 24, contained heavy cloud-to-ground lightning, and firemen began receiving multiple calls at 10:30 that evening.

The first fire was on the Milton Mann property on south SH 70 and burned less than five acres before being brought under control.

Other fire calls that evening ended up being in Armstrong County, Powell said. The Clarendon Fire Department noticed several “glows” to the southwest of Clarendon and investigated only to find muddy roads with more than an inch of rain between them and the fires. The fires seemed to be put out later by rain.

But by 1:10 a.m. on Thursday, the fire department began receiving calls about
multiple fires on the JA Ranch that were beginning to grow. The department responded with three units and a tanker to extreme southwest Donley County on CR CC to a grass fire reported to be 20 acres and growing.

At 5:00 a.m., the department requested for help from the county commissioners and their motor graders. By daylight, three county motor graders were on scene helping to contain the fire. Named “Lone Tree #1,” the fire was contained by 10 a.m.

At 10:30, Clarendon VFD units noticed smoke to the SW of their location and notified Silverton of a new fire in Briscoe County. Clarendon sent two units into Briscoe County to assist on this fire (named Lone Tree #2) as it would take Silverton over an hour to respond due to the remote location of this fire. Silverton arrived on the scene, and Clarendon returned to fire number one.

“By around noon, multiple fires begin showing up in Armstrong County, and Claude requested for help from Clarendon, but we were unable to pull off and leave the fires that we had,” Powell said.

Thursday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. the Clarendon VFD still had units on scene of fire number one and noticed smoke to the northeast of their location. At the same time, fire number one broke back out and spotted across a creek bed.

“We kept some units on fire number one and sent the rest along with the county blades to fire number three which ended up being on the Sandy Camp Ranch,” Powell said.

Donley County sent three more motor graders and Clarendon and Memphis TxDOT responded with four dozers and two motor graders. Clarendon EMS was called due to some firemen suffering from heat exhaustion, and the Clarendon Firebelles responded with food and drinks for all involved.

That evening at 7:30 p.m., units from Silverton, Turkey, and Memphis, which had been working fire number two, pulled off that fire and came to take command of fire number one so Clarendon could use all its resources on fire number three. Memphis also moved units to fire three, which was brought under control at 11:30 p.m., allowing units to return to their bases.

The next afternoon, Friday, August 26, Lone Tree #1 broke out of the containment lines at about 4 p.m., and Clarendon again responded with six units, requesting assistance from the county and TxDOT.

Donley County Commissioner Andy Wheatly responded with his helicopter and, joined by
Commissioner Dan Sawyer, helped to coordinate efforts from the air. The Clarendon EMS and Firebelles also responded to help with firefighter rehab. This fire was
brought under control and units returned to their bases six hours later.

“Our firemen did a great job,” Powell said. “I had five firemen with me when we left at 1:30 a.m. on Thursday – Chancy Cruse, Junior Newman, Joel Horn, Ryan Hill, and Eloy Camacho – and they were still going hard late Thursday night with little or no sleep, and they did not go in until early Friday morning. It got very hot down there; and, combined with no sleep and the temperatures, we had some guys that went above and beyond the call.

“We all greatly appreciated the Firebelles and Clarendon EMS as they worked hard to help us keep going safely. We would also like to thank Machiel Covey who rounded up a hot meal for all of us Friday. We would also like to thank Randall and Julie Gates who made us a meal on Thursday.”