DENNARD — As a result of warm, dry conditions, almost 40 wildfires raged throughout the state last weekend. The worst fire took place in Van Buren County near the town of Dennard.
The Dennard Volunteer Fire Department has about 20 firefighters, many of whom responded to help extinguish the flames.
“It scares you,” Dennard Fire Chief Donnie Collins said. “The first thing you think of are all of the dangers and the people it could affect.”
Collins said the department’s next reaction was to decide which structures were most endangered by fire and to protect those first.
“We lost one small structure, and no one was home,” Collins said. “We lost some cars and a garage, but we protected all the other structures.”
By Monday, Collins said, the fire was contained, and the most his residents would have to deal with was heavy smoke.
Thanks to the help of multiple Van Buren and Searcy County agencies, lives and property are safe.
“At one time, I think we had 11 fire departments and probably 25 trucks and somewhere around 75 personnel helping us,” Collins said.
The Clinton Fire Department was paged Sunday afternoon to help with the effort.
Due to the location of the fire, air tankers were needed to drop water from the sky to extinguish the blaze.
“We went to the airport and filled the [Arkansas Forestry Commission’s] air tankers,” Clinton Fire Chief Paul Maddox said. “They had four air tankers that dropped water on the fire. We have a 1-ton fire truck and an engine company that I sent up there. We were released at about 3 a.m. Monday morning.”
“Obviously, the airport was beneficial in this circumstance,” Clinton Airport Commission member Eddie Morgan said. “It’s important for a lot of different reasons as well, but this time they were able to fill up the tankers from that single location and use them to help put out the fire.”
The tankers and 25 trucks were beneficial in extinguishing the blaze, which Maddox said was the largest he had seen in 17 years of fire service.
“It was unreal how big it was,” he said.
Collins agreed, but noted that the situation could have been much worse.
“The fire got within 20 feet of several structures,” he said. “Had we not had the tremendous turnout we did, we would have lost some houses.”
Collins said the next step will be to continue to monitor the area to make sure the wind doesn’t pick up and start another fire outside of a contained area. As always, calls from residents who notice fires are appreciated.
“If people see a fire, they should call it in,” Collins said. “Usually what they’re seeing is in a contained area, but we will always go check.”
Collins said his department will pay extra attention to the area for the next few days.
“The wind might pick up,” he said Monday. “We will keep watching [the fire] until [the wind] settles down.”