Copyright 2006 The Times-Picayune Publishing Company
Despite a ban, trash fires noted
By RICHARD BOYD
Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
As a firefighter hosed down her smashed backyard shed, Liz Jenkins kept a wary eye Wednesday on the smoke rolling across her property from a fire spreading through the woods behind her home in Bush.
“My neighbor called me at work and I came home,” Jenkins said as scores of local firefighters battle the 35-acre blaze, which threatened several homes along Sticker Road.
The fire was reported at 10:15 a.m. and was contained within an hour by firefighters from Bush, Sun, Waldheim and Abita Springs, along with state forestry firefighters equipped with a plow. An abandoned structure deep in the dense tangle of scorched forest burned but no inhabited structures were damaged.
Jenkins was grateful for the help in her own yard from one of the 9th District firefighters from Bush.
“I am glad he’s hosing down my shed,” Jenkins said. “It’s just mostly shambles now, knocked down by Hurricane Katrina but I still wouldn’t want to see that all go up in flames, being close to my house.”
Jenkins lives in a blue-roofed, storm-damaged home off Watts-Thomas Road. In an adjacent lot stands what’s left of a neighbor’s mobile home, cleanly sectioned in three pieces by trees toppled by Katrina.
The fire in Bush was one of two that kept parish and state firefighters busy Wednesday, a second day of scrambling to respond to wildfires scattered from west to east St. Tammany Parish.
About eight miles away, a smaller fire covered three acres east of Louisiana 1083 near Dogwood Estates, shooting 10-foot flames into the air. A state forestry department helicopter made repeated passes over the fire, drenching it with water scooped from a nearby pond along Bully Branch.
Firefighters on the scene said the fire might have been caused by a debris fire that got out of control — even though there is a parishwide ban on outdoor fires.
Mike Cutler is an Oregon firefighter serving as temporary command chief of a contingent of out-of-state firefighters assisting state forestry firefighters on the north shore since the hurricane in August. The rash of recent fires in the dry woodlands littered with fallen, rotting trees and dry brush has kept his force busy in St. Tammany and Washington parishes in recent weeks, he said.
“This is a small one, luckily, and we had immediate access to that pond along that creek in back of the fire so we could dump a lot of water on it quickly,” Cutler said.
Later Wednesday, firefighters responded to at least three other blazes in the parish. Firefighters from the state joined parish firefighters from the Madisonville, Lacombe and Slidell fire districts Tuesday in fighting three woods fires in those three areas and another in the Bush area Tuesday night.
Also, while fires were being battled, other firefighters were busy Tuesday responding to calls of unauthorized burns — most small trash fires — but still illegal while the burn ban is in effect. In the past two months, a burn ban has been imposed, lifted and then imposed again last week after a rash of timber fires, possibly caused by out-of-control debris fires.