As drought conditions continue, fires continue to be a problem in the area.
On Monday, June 20 into the early morning hours of Tuesday, June 21, Dublin Volunteer Fire Department responded to five fires between 3:14 p.m. and 2:17 a.m.
According to information shared by DVFD Fire Chief Paul Warner, department members spent five hours on a fire off Farm-to-Market near a dairy.
The fire started as a result of cutting hay, then moved into an old salvage pit, where the department simply could not get the fire to go out.
“Even with foam, we couldn’t put it out. We just had to back up, watch it and let it burn,” Warner said.
Other fires included a grass fire headed toward some large hay bales, a mutual aid call with Procter, a grass fire caused by a car with flat fire and a vehicle fire in Dublin off Comanche Street.
Last week, Dublin VFD was one of several departments that responded to the Dodd Fire, named by the Texas A&M Forest service, that started with a simple grass fire call at 2 p.m. Monday, June 13. The call started with a request for Erath County and Huckabay VFD units to respond to County Road 124.
According to Erath County Emergency Management Coordinator Cyndi Smith, within 30 minutes of the first call, an all call went out requesting assistance from all Erath County Volunteer Departments to send a brush truck from each department. All departments responded which included Bluff Dale, Dublin, Gordan, Harbin, Lingleville, Morgan Mill, Selden VFD’s and City of Stephenville Fire Department. Precinct 3 and Precinct 4 also assisted with dozers and water trucks.
The decision to only send one brush truck from each department was made because of the severe drought and for safety of all residents in Erath County. Departments are not requested to send all equipment to one fire as to leave fire resources close to their area to be able to respond to any other emergency that may occur at the same time.
At approximately 3 p.m. within 1 hour of the initial call, a call was placed to the Texas A&M Forest Service for assistance with dozer and strike team crews. Fire breaks were created by the dozers, while fire crews worked the active fires.
At 10 p.m. Monday night, dozer operations were halted until Tuesday morning because of safety concerns for personnel regarding rough terrain.
The TFS returned with additional dozer crews to assist with the fire on the morning of Tuesday, June 14. Due to the high wind and the rough terrain, Texas A&M Forest Service requested their air attack resource from San Angelo. The air attack was able to assist with areas that were unable to be reached with the other equipment and was able to bring the fire from a 5% containment on Monday to a 80% containment on Tuesday by 4 pm.
VFD and TFS crews continued to stay on location Monday and Tuesday nights to watch for hotspots.
At noon on Wednesday, June 15 the fire was at 90% containment and by 6 p.m. Wednesday night, the TFS stated the fire was at 100% containment and the official acreage burned was 203.5 acres.
As fires have burned through the area for the past several months, citizens may be curious as to the difference between containment and the fire being completely out.
The Dodd Fire was in a rough terrain with lots of vegetation/trees.
“While people may still see smoke and some flames, this is normally from the trees and brush that did not originally burn. This will be inside the area that has already burned prior. This area is referred to as the black. The black will normally not burn a second time until new vegetation grows back. There are also fire breaks to keep any portion of the fire from spreading,” Smith explained. “The TFS and the VFD feel that there is no further threat to the residents or properties from this fire where they have the containment.”
Dublin also responded to a mobile home fire Tuesday, June 14 on Hwy. 6 west, close to County Road 347. With high wind conditions, DVFD responded to a fully involved structure fire. Fortunately, they were able to stop the fire before it became a wildfire by utilizing some structure fire containment techniques.
The mobile home was not occupied and was a complete loss. The fire is under investigation with the Erath County Fire Marshal’s Office.
As firework season approaches, Erath County Emergency Management would like to remind everyone that it is against the law to ignite/discharge fireworks inside the city limits of any city, such as Dublin and Stephenville.
It is a Class C Misdemeanor with fines up to $500 per incident for igniting/discharging fireworks inside city limits. Also, if a fire is caused by your fireworks, you could be held responsible for all damages caused.
“While the Commissioners were unable, due to the drought index, to ban the sale of aerial fireworks, we would like to caution anyone from using them as they are still hot when they return to the ground and could ignite fires and possibly lead to the loss of a structure, property or even a life,” Smith said.