Pray for rain, governor pleads
Posted on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Wildfires that have broken out across drought-stricken Arkansas during unusually dry, windy weather were mostly contained by Monday afternoon, but the potential for more remains high despite rain in the forecast.
The fire danger and drought are so alarming that Gov. Mike Huckabee issued a proclamation on Monday asking Arkansans to pray for rain.
“Whereas, the lack of rain has led to wildfires and has imperiled the water supplies of many cities and towns... this condition serves as a poignant reminder of our complete reliance on God for even the most basic necessities of life,” the proclamation read in part.
An Ashley County family knows how badly rain is needed.
Chad and Bianca Frisby watched Sunday morning as fire scorched the parched earth in the distance just outside Hamburg, in the southeast corner of the state. Even as flames licked trees, they doubted that the fire would make its way to the four-bedroom, frame house they bought from Bianca’s mother several years ago.
A few minutes later, though, firefighters sped into their driveway ordering the family to leave because of approaching flames, which eventually consumed about 3, 300 acres of mostly timberland. Quickly, the family and firefighters grabbed a few belongs and ran out the door.
“This house ain’t going to burn down,” Chad Frisby told himself as he left.
They returned 12 hours later to find nothing more than a burned-out hull, a front porch and smoldering ashes where their dream home once stood.
The pictures and home movies of their only child, 9-year-old Taylor, were gone, too. On the same four acres, Bianca’s mother, Betty Timmons, lost two storage sheds, a mobile home filled with many of her keepsakes, a barn and a chicken coop.
Timmons walked along the property Monday afternoon, overwhelmed by what she had lost. Photos of her father, taken just before his death 10 years ago, were destroyed along with so much more.
“There’s nothing left,” she said, sobbing on a cell phone to friends.
The wildfire near Hamburg was just one of about 50 in Arkansas that firefighters battled Monday, according to the Arkan- sas Forestry Commission.
Some of the fires are suspected to have been caused by arson and others by people burning trash despite burn bans in more than 60 of the state’s 75 counties.
Fire officials declined to release more specific information about the causes.
Fires were reported from north to south Arkansas, but only about four continued to burn Monday evening, said Jerry Lambert, spokesman for the commission.
Firefighters in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana also are battling similar conditions.
Before fire crews contained most of the blazes in Arkansas — trapping fire by digging a circle around it with a bulldozer and clearing brush that might ignite — 336 acres burned outside the Grant County town of Redfield, about 1, 200 acres burned near Sugarloaf Mountain in Sebastian County and about 500 acres burned on Spring Mountain in Hot Spring County.
No other families in Arkansas reported losing their homes to wildfires.
Jim Grant, another spokesman for the commission, said that flames in the fire outside Hamburg jumped from treetop to treetop during the fire’s peak but that only old stumps and fallen branches continued to burn Monday.
Those likely will smolder and smoke for weeks.
“In some of the areas, there is just sticks that are left,” said Grant, who spent the day in Hamburg. “No needles or limbs left.”
Grant hoped that rain forecast for Monday and today would ease fire concerns, but he hadn’t seen much of anything fall by the time he left Hamburg in the afternoon.
A little rain won’t curtail the persistent drought — at least not by much — said Paul Iniguez, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in North Little Rock.
“I’m a little worried people will jump on [the reports of rain ] and think, ‘ The drought’s over, ’” said Iniguez, who has been closely monitoring the situation.
“That couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Over the past 12 months, the counties in the state are down about 20 inches, on average, from the normal amount of rainfall.
The southwest and northcentral parts of the state are experiencing more severe drought conditions, with at least six counties suffering from “exceptional” drought conditions.
That is the highest level.
“We’re going to have to have a wet period [before the drought ends ],” Iniguez said, adding that the state would benefit most from storm systems bringing rain a few times a week, every week for about three months.
Eighteen to 20 inches, he explained, would be enough rain to offset the below average rainfall plaguing the state since last spring.
Improbable in the near future ? Maybe.
But Chad Frisby’s brother, Carl Rucker, knows that stranger things have happened. His mobile home is about 50 yards from where his brother’s home stood.
Firefighters told Carl Rucker and his wife, Terri, that their home was lost to the fire, too.
But when they went there to see if anything was left, they found the mobile home untouched.
Fire had just charred their yard, at times coming within 10 feet of the home.
In front of the house, Laney, the family’s yellow Labrador retriever, waited patiently.
All the Ruckers lost was a water pump shed.
“It’s a miracle,” Carl Rucker’s wife declared, looking at the house. Information for this story was contributed by Russell Powell of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
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