COASTAL OBSERVER

Midway Fire Rescue Chief Brent McClellan has seen a lot of things in his 31 years as a firefighter.

But until last Saturday at Prince George he had never seen a mountainous wall of fire moving toward him.

“In my career that’s the first one where we had a wall of fire 30-plus feet tall and moving at a high speed. I’ve not seen that,” McClellan said. “That’s the only fast moving, volatile, heavy fueled fire that I have seen. It was different.”

Midway firefighters were at Prince George on Saturday to aid the S.C. Forestry Commission, which had firefighters and people on tractors on the ground. 

“They cut a road through the woods to get well ahead of the fire,” McClellan said. “By removing the fuels and by churning up the loose dirt, hopefully it creates a barrier.”

Midway firefighters were stationed near houses. 

The Forestry Commission was “working to bring the wildfire component under control and we were doing our own structure and life safety initiatives,” said Brandon Ellis, Georgetown County’s emergency services director.

At some point the wind shifted and the flames were fueled by the marsh grass.

“That fire started moving quick. So the fire basically came to us,” McClellan said. “Our people were set up in a defensive posture and when it hit the marsh grass and it got in backyards, our people set up hose lines.”

“The wind shifted and the conditions changed. It happened rapidly; within a matter of 20 minutes or so,” Ellis said. “We went from a good day to almost a bad day.”

The Forestry Commission called for water drops.

Two planes collected water from Winyah Bay and North Inlet and dropped it onto the fire, and houses, while a pilot in a third plane gave information about where to make the drops.

“We were very fortunate to have those aviation assets and I daresay that aided us greatly in the firefighting and protecting the community,” Ellis said.

“My guys will tell you, to know those planes were there and to see where they dropping their water, that helped,” McClellan said.

Mike Eberhard was returning to his home on Beach Bridge Road when he saw smoke. That was not an uncommon sight since there had been controlled burns going on recently at Arcadia Plantation, which is south of Prince George.

Then he saw flames.

“It was still pretty small and it was in the far corner of the marsh,” Eberhard said. “But there was a pretty steady breeze.”

Eberhard called 911 at 12:41 p.m. Midway arrived with an engine, a tanker and an ATV.

Hours later, when the evacuations were ordered, Eberhard thought about leaving but decided to stay.

“Our vantage point gave us the ability to see how the fire was progressing,” he said. “We didn’t feel like it had gotten to the point that it was necessary.”

Had a firefighter arrived and asked him to leave he would have, Eberhard added.

When the planes began dropping water, they “did their magic,” Eberhard said.

“All the first responders are heroes but especially those pilots,” he added. “They were instrumental.”

Robin Morris and Richard Moore have lived in Prince George since 2009 but never seen a fire. Until Saturday.

“It was scary,” Morris said. 

Morris was out for her afternoon walk when the fire when the Forestry Commission arrived around 2 p.m.

About 10 minutes later she watched as the fire rapidly grew and the smoke rose higher into the sky.

“They realized almost immediately,” she said. “When they were down there they knew this was not a good thing.”

Moore said he could hear the fire from their house, but he couldn’t feel the heat. 

“Fortunately it didn’t get close to our house,” Morris said. 

“You could hear and feel the airplanes flying over,” Moore said.

Morris and Moore did not have to evacuate, but said a lot of their neighbors did. 

The evacuation order was lifted before dusk.

Ellis was pleased with how the community reacted.

“I think they took it seriously, obviously, given the situation,” Ellis said. “I applaud them for their efforts to get out of the area so our folks could do their work.”

Murrells Inlet-Garden City Fire sent an apparatus and a crew, as did the city of Georgetown. Sheriff’s deputies helped with the evacuation and traffic.

“It was a good joint effort by all,” McClellan said.

“We refer to Team Georgetown a lot, you hear us say that and this was another prime example of that,” Ellis said.

McClellan asked for more help from fire departments in neighboring counties, but for the first time in his career, there was no help to be had.

“Nobody had anything to send,” he said. “They were already committed to their own fires or they were already committed to somebody else.”

Georgetown County firefighters were battling an 80-acre fire in the North Santee area. Horry County firefighters were keeping Carolina Forest from burning to the ground.

At one point on Saturday every Midway truck, except for one, was in use in Prince George. Off-duty firefighters were called in to handle all the other calls or assist in Prince George.

“The whole time that battle is going on down there, we’re covering the district with 50 percent of what we normally have,” McClellan said. “Things don’t slow down in the district. You can’t tell the next person, we’re already on one. It was nerve racking for a little bit. But we handled it.”

The wildfire burned about 130 acres.

Ellis said if the fire not been contained and continued to spread north, the next houses in its path would have been in The Colony, Waterford and Pawleys Plantation. Some of the woods in those areas are not accessible to fire trucks so it would all be up to aircraft, he added.

“We feel like our people were in the right place and did the right things and had a good outcome,” McClellan said. “The residents, they heeding the warnings, they heeded the evacuation. It was just a good conscious effort by all.”