Marion, Dillon counties send firefighters to help Horry battle blaze

Mullins Fire Chief Robert Stetson looks over the equipment on a fire engine this past week while giving a group a tour of the Mullins Fire Department. Stetson and several other Marion and Dillon counties firefighters have headed to Horry County to help combat a two-day-old blaze.

By: | SCNow
Published: April 23, 2009

Three Mullins firefighters and an engineer heeded the call to help and headed to Horry County to fight the blaze that started Wednesday.

Marion Rural Fire Department sent two tanker trucks Thursday morning and the City of Marion sent a fire engine and a crew of four, Marion Fire Chief Alan Ammons said. At 4 p.m. Thursday, they were requested to send another engine, he said and the department was putting together another crew.

According to Robert Stetson, the Mullins Fire Department Chief, Dillon firefighters also went earlier in the day to help combat the fire that has consumed thousands of acres in Horry County. A crew pulled out between 4-4:30 p.m. to head to the intersection of State Highways 22 and 90, Stetson said, adding that he was told another subdivision was being threatened.

Stetson remembers helping Horry County firefighters about six years ago, before Highway 22 was completed, with a woods fire that also took several days to bring under control. And, he said, about four years ago, area firefighters helped the county and others fight the Legends Golf Course Fire, as well.

"I tell my volunteers and men that if they think they're going down there, and coming right back, they probably will be down there for a couple of days," Stetson said. "Eight of us also volunteer in Horry County, so we sort of do dual duty."

"We have more on standby, to go down tonight or tomorrow as needed," Stetson and Ammons said.

First of all, Stetson said, the area has sea breezes that change in an instant. You develop a plan of attack," he explained, and the wind changes and you have to go back and regroup and re-plan ..." Stetson said the Carolina Bays in that area of Horry County, with their broom straw and dried grass, provide ground fuel for flames and the embers are caught on the breeze and carried to a shingle and the shingles fuel another spot fire.

Typically, he explained, its good to fire these types of brush fires at night when the winds die down and the humidity is higher, but with the low humidity, that's not happening.

"The best attacks on these kinds of blazes come at night ... you need the moisture to help fight this thing."