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...Firefighters were busy all day Monday as they contained three fires across the county.
The first fire broke out at 3:50 a.m. and wasn’t completely out until noon, with two crews handling the firefighting.
“It was a 20-mile round trip to get water there,” said Battalion Chief Rick Stephens, on why it took so long to put it out.
It started as an electrical fire in a red Ford truck, said Stephens, then spread to the carport and throughout the house owned by Mac Abercrombie.
“It’s always a challenge when there’s no water available to fight a fire,” said Fire Marshal Scott Silvey. “If there’s no hydrant, they have to shuttle it back and forth, and it’s tough to do the job.”
Silvey said running water lines to rural areas like Sand Spring Road is up to the county water department, but fire trucks each carry 1,000 to 1,500 gallons of water.
“Homeowners make a choice,” Silvey said. “When they
A Georgia Forestry bulldozer works to make a fire break in a field behind Oak Hill Church of Christ on Monday afternoon. Ken Caruthers / RN-T |
get homeowner’s insurance, they are asked how far they are to a hydrant or to a fire station.
“But these guys do a great job getting water to a fully involved structure and keeping it from spreading.”
Steve Hulsey, utilities administrator for Floyd County, said the county has six water systems, but this part hasn’t been built into a system because of a lack of growth and demand in the area.
“The growth has never been big enough since the county looks at a cost estimate over 10 years and whether it can be paid back,” said Hulsey, adding he’s never had a petition for that area to be added other than a small section of Texas Valley Road, which would have cost $5 million in the early ’90s. “At higher elevations, it’s harder, and for the water lines, tanks and pumps, it could be over a billion. It would require a lot of modifications.”
Stephens said water was being culled from the Rocky Mountain project at Big Texas Valley Road and Fouche Gap Road, a 10-mile drive one way.
Living in the house were the recently married Claudia Abercrombie Miller, Mac Abercrombie’s daughter, and her husband Keith Miller.
“We got the animals out, two cats and a dog,” said Claudia Miller, adding that various family members live in several nearby houses. “They got it stopped in a hurry before it spread.”
The couple will be staying with her father for now. The house was insured, but the fire is still under investigation.
The second fire happened behind Oak Hill Church of Christ next to the new post office on Martha Berry Boulevard.
According to Danny Lee, Rome Fire Department:
Bill Brinkley, the preacher at the church, called in the fire around 12:45 p.m. The Georgia Forestry Commission and Berry Land Resource Management officers also responded to the fire because it bordered the Berry College property line near the museum.
Firefighters plowed a break line around the estimated 2- to 3-acre fire and had it under control by 1:30 p.m.
Officials don’t know what started the fire.
“We saw tire tracks from a single vehicle trail but haven’t found anything,” said Lee.
Brinkley said he called in when he saw smoke, adding that someone saw a white pickup truck leave the area just before the fire started. He said the church owns the land all the way to the river, but it is open land with no buildings.
A third blaze broke out at a 1389 McGhee Bend Road residence just after 2 p.m., authorities said.
That fire originated from an older-model Trans Am sitting in the back yard of a residence, said Lt. David Montgomery of the Cave Spring Fire Department.
The car was fully involved when firefighters arrived, and the fire spread to a 2.5-acre grass and woodland area behind the home, he said.
Firefighters quickly extinguished the vehicle fire but took about 45 minutes to get the wildfire under control, Montgomery said. Georgia Forestry units plowed a break around the flames.
Both Cave Spring and Rome fire units responded. No structures were harmed in the fire, though a nearby pickup truck suffered heat damage.
Staff Writers Andrea Freygang and Heath Hooper contributed to this report.
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