Saturday's Internet Edition, July 05, 2008.
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| Edwards County Deputy Sheriff Jay Adams investigates the recreational home of Jeremy Alcede of Lake Charles, LA which was destroyed with fire during the night time hours on Sunday, February 17th. A close neighbor heard something like an explosion about 3 a.m. that night. Alcede found a mostly burned backpack which contained canned goods and baby food from Mexico. It was a possibility that illegals caused the fire, but thought to be purely accidental. Photo by Randy Laverne |
Dry and drier, high winds and low humidity have been the cause of several fires lately, and there are probably more to come.
A recreational home was destroyed last week. This was probably due to an explosion in a weekend home.
Early Monday afternoon, the fire siren rang and by 4:15, there was a large fire out north of Highway 41. A fencing crew welder, working on the northern side of the 4-Bar ranch, ignited grass while working there. The area was under a red flag warning. The crew had no spotter and no water sprayer provided.
Burning over 6,000 acres, the fire spread from the 4-Bar onto Bill Mitchell’s, Lorelei Hankins’ and Clark Hankins’ ranches. When a strong north wind blew in that evening, the fire direction changed, jumped across HWY 41 and continued on into Real County.
Edwards County Fire Chief Willy Richards said the fire was moving so fast that they could not keep up with it, with help or water. He said they were assisted by fire departments from Divide, Leakey, Brackettville, Nueces Canyon, Val Verde, Happy and Mt. Home. The Georgia Forest Service, stationed in Uvalde, and the Texas Forest Service came in with 2 blackhawk helicopters and 3 bulldozers to assist in the operation. As of the middle of Tuesday afternoon, Richards reported the fire to be contained in Real County.
He also said Clark and Vickie Hankins, Dennis Mitchell, Carl and Jean Hyde and other landowners were of great help through the ordeal.