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Monday, February 2, 2009

Texas firefighter: the fire may continue to rekindle

A fire in Brazos County in Texas rekindled Sunday after firefighters worked to contain it on Saturday. A firefighter from the Brazos County Fire Department apparently thinks this is standard operating procedure.

From KBTX.com:
"There's still some light fuels in there and as the wind picks up, the fire gets a good breath of air and off it goes again," said Brazos Co. Volunteer firefighter Greg Cross.

"We don't have the resources to try and drench the entire area with water," said Cross. "Its probably going to continue to occur periodically."
Of course firefighter Greg Cross may not speak for his entire department.

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WTF?

On the same day in Oklahoma, two firefighters were sent to the hospital with first and second degree burns they suffered in another rekindled fire.

Am I old fashioned, or what? We used to never abandon a fire if it were likely to escape our fire lines. We mopped up as far inside the lines as needed, we patrolled it, and after we left it we would continue to send people back to check it periodically until it was totally out. There is too much at risk, to our firefighters and the public, to do anything else.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I believe the culture in many areas in Tx & Ok is to line the fire and let humidity take care of the mop up. Most times this seems to work for them, but some times as you can see it does not. On past fire assignments in that part of the country, the locals, including the TFS boys, would look at our crews and engines like we were out of our minds when we stayed after the fire was contained to "mop-up".

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