By Stephen Smoot
Historically the British Army has earned the nickname “the thin red line.” That refers to a highly trained fighting force, that though not ever numerous, that always attacks a fight with conviction and determination.
And they always get the job done with pride and a stiff upper lip.
Area first responders, including those from Pendleton County, earned that nom d’honneur last week as every unit in the area, plus many who came to help, battled relentless fires spurred by destructive winds.
Every county faced the same crisis. With fires raging in places and conditions creating danger everywhere, mutual aid could not happen for days. Each county, initially, found itself on its own for the most part. United States Forest Service crews assigned to the Monongahela National Forest, however, did provide mutual aid.
The danger started last Wednesday. National Weather Service warning maps indicated bright red for fire danger over most of the state. Though the winter had brought soaking rains, high winds caused the vegetation to dry out statewide.
All of West Virginia west of Interstate 79 and south of Morgantown showed red, while the main centers of danger in the Potomac Highlands lay along the South Branch and South Fork valleys in Pendleton and Hardy counties, as well as southern Grant. There, the valleys would catch the wind and produce a tunnel effect, whipping them up to tropical storm force.
The highest officially recorded gust was on Wednesday in Deer Run. There, the winds hit the mid 60s in miles per hour.
Initial reports of fire came in at 12:14 p.m. on Wednesday. Fire units raced through Franklin to join others converging on the scene to try to contain a fire on Mitchell Mountain. Units blocked Mitchell Mountain Road to keep all safe, but also found themselves blocked at times. Winds blew a tree down on Siple Mountain Road, forcing some units to backtrack and detour around to the other end of Greenawalt Gap to access the blaze.
Brian DiFalco from Franklin Volunteer Fire Department stated that even as firefighters and others battled the blaze, winds were blowing trees down around them, adding more danger and urgency to the scene.
He also shared that “while we were at that fire, everything else blew up.”
“On March 20, we saw unprecedented 911 call loads and VFD workloads as six wildfires broke out in the county,” reported Rick Gillespie, Pendleton County Emergency Services coordinator. He added that a seventh raged at the Pendleton-Hardy line in Potomac Overlook Estates on Grace Mountain. Its northeastern path took it into the purview of Hardy County and the West Virginia Division of Forestry.
DiFalco described the hours long efforts to dispatch limited resources to the best possible effect. As fires seemed to quiet in some areas, units would be redeployed to more urgent threats.
“Our county VFDs, all of them,” Gillespie described, “were pushed to their limits. They rose to the challenge and managed to keep all of our fires contained, keeping them from turning into huge disasters.”
Both Gillespie and DiFalco praised citizens who came with everything from shovels to bulldozers to pitch in and help the exhausted fire and rescue crews as they worked tirelessly through the worst of it.
Others also committed themselves to the long hours and hard work necessary to help. “The personnel at Pendleton 911 did an outstanding job of handling the call load,” Gillespie explained, adding that “I am very proud of them and commend their performance of duty.”
The Pendleton County Office of Emergency Management also extended their resources, staffing the County Emergency Operations Center with enough personnel to manage and operate seven radio channels to coordinate all of the moving parts of the operations. Personnel came from the County OEM, Pendleton 911, and Franklin VFD.
In addition to Mitchell Mountain, fires also broke out on or near Capito Hill Road, Snowy Mountain Road, Sugar Grove Road, and Brushy Fork Road. They ranged from three acres burned to more than 200 consumed on Brushy Fork. All were reported between 12:12 and 1:17 p.m., except for the Snowy Mountain fire that was reported at 5:30 in the evening.
Once again, the efforts of Pendleton fire units saved both lives and property. DiFalco stated that “there was an old church on Capito Hill Road. It caught fire, but they were able to stop it.” The fire damaged a rear wall, but the church remained “structurally sound.”
“To my knowledge,” DiFalco said “no structures were lost.”
Other areas saw even more dangerous incidents. As of Sunday, the United States Forest Service reported six blazes raging in the Monongahela and George Washington National Forests and private land in West Virginia and Virginia. The smallest covered nine acres, but the four largest ranged from 1,148 to 6,206 acres.
Hardy County, who suffered some of the worst of the fires in the Mountain State, put out calls Wednesday and Thursday nights for citizen assistance to run food, water, and other supplies to the fire lines. They asked for anyone with a pickup truck or other all terrain vehicles to help. South Fork and Keyser VFDs, among many others, also gathered supplies to support Hardy County units.
Some of what came from the destruction, especially since fires did not take lives or property, was quite beautiful in a way.
Franklin Volunteer Fire Department’s Facebook page told the story of a county full of communities pitching in to do whatever they could for those on the fire lines. “As in the past, our community and its citizens, who we are honored to serve and protect, showed the true meaning of life in our county.”
Citizens “donated food, drinks, other supplies, and money,” all of which was “greatly appreciated as everyone working the fires had gone hours without food and drinking water.”
Upper Tract Volunteer Fire Department also extended “thanks to the community for your support and all of the VFDs, we could not do it without you all.”
