Large-scale response brings fire under control

Published 9:45 am Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Large-scale response brings fire under control

Gusty winds drove flames through sagebrush and woods on Grand View Plantation Sunday afternoon. Firefighters from Panola and Tate counties were able to keep the flames from burning structures on the property and from spreading to neighboring acreage, including the pine plantation on the south side of Highway 310 (right).  Drone photo looking east provided.

Gusty winds drove flames through sagebrush and woods on Grand View Plantation Sunday afternoon. Firefighters from Panola and Tate counties were able to keep the flames from burning structures on the property and from spreading to neighboring acreage, including the pine plantation on the south side of Highway 310 (right).
Drone photo looking east provided.

By John Howell
Firefighters from 15 or more Panola County and Tate County fire departments struggled for almost six hours before finally controlling a windswept blaze that spread over approximately 1,000  acres on Highway 310 near Longtown Sunday.
“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life, said Longtown Fire Chief Jacob West whose department initially found itself looking at approximately 10 acres burning on the Grand View Plantation, about two square miles of land mostly devoted to pasture.
“The fuel was there for the fire and the wind was there to fan it,” said  Panola County Emergency Management Agency Director Daniel Cole, citing an abundance of dry sagebrush and winds gusting over 15 miles an hour from the northwest for much of the afternoon.
Cole said the initial report of the fire came to the E911 dispatching center at 12:29 p.m. A county-wide “tone-out” brought personnel and equipment from 14 Panola fire departments and from Tate County departments.
“Those guys were great,” West said. “Everybody did exactly what they were supposed to do,” he continued, noting that departments came from as far away as the Bynum department in southeast Panola County.
Firefighters stationed engines at every structure in the fire’s path.
“It jumped 310 and we got it stopped; it jumped Parks Place (Road) and we got it stopped,” West said, describing the further spread threatened when burning embers were blown across the roads bordering the east and south side of the plantation.
“It’s a thousand wonders that no structures were burned,” Cole said. “It got real close to some structures.”
West, who became incident commander by virtue of having been the first department to arrive at the scene, said that because of the fire’s rapid expansion over such a large area, he quickly delegated different areas to other departments for control.
Cole said that personnel from the Mississippi Forestry Commission, Panola County Sheriff’s Department, Mississippi Highway Patrol, MedStat ambulance as well as the Panola County EMA joined the effort to contain the flames, control traffic and keep people safe.
“Forestry was excellent; they did an outstanding job,” Cole said, citing the limited resources budgeted for the Mississippi Forestry Commission that has reduced the personnel and equipment available to respond to forest fires.
“We were blessed with the large response,” West said. “We appreciate all the people who turned out to help.”
The plantation is owned by the William C. Adair Jr. Trust, according to land records. It is bordered by Fitts Road on the north, Pleasant Grove Road on the west as well as Parks Place and Highway 310 on the east and south.
The plantation is bordered on the entire two-mile length of its south side by a white vinyl fence which melted to the ground when the flames reached it.
Cole said that the largest comparable fire that he can remember came in 2008 or 2009 on Pointer family property east of Como which destroyed a large number of hay bales along with burning through woods and pasture.

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