Nearly 50 acres scorched near Garland

Families and their homes near the Garland area were spared a grim fate this past weekend in the wake of a fire outbreak at the old Greens Bridge golf course, which burned nearly 50 acres of land.

“Please avoid the area of Old Tom Morris Road and Greens Bridge Road around the old Greens Bridge golf course, just outside of Garland,” Sampson County Emergency Services posted on its Facebook page Saturday night. “Fire crews from Sampson, Bladen and Cumberland counties are currently on-scene of a large woods fire that has already damaged several structures and vehicles. Sampson County Emergency Services and NC Forestry Service is also assisting. Forestry Service has equipment both on the ground and in the air trying to contain the fire.”

According to official reports, calls about the blaze began pouring in around 4:48 p.m., and as crews arrived on location, they battled the inferno for hours before getting it contained.

“The biggest thing was that we got paged out on a weekend, so of course, we’re not at the office,” Sampson County Ranger Cody Ake, NC Forest Service, said. “When we went out to it, just listening from the radio traffic, it sounded like it was a mess. There were calls for structures that were being taken up, homes that were being threatened, all of that stuff. So in my mind, the process was trying to figure out what we’re going to do next.”

Ake said his team and other fire crews got to work quickly to quell the flames, which he noted got out of hand rapidly due to the dry weather.

”I had one of the guys that works with me, he wasn’t on call, but he heard it and was only 10 minutes down the road,” Ake said. “He asked if I needed him to come out, and I was like, ‘yeah, I’m going to need everybody out here.’ It finally died down right before I got there, but we had a scout plane, and both of our, what we call them SEATS (Short Engine Air Tankers), to drop water out.

“Thank goodness for all the fire crews we had out there assisting us as well,” he added. “Fortunately, nobody got hurt, and the biggest thing that contributed to it burning the way it was is it being super dry and just people burning. I’d say those were the biggest causes.”

As for what sparked the fire, Ake said an unnamed resident was burning debris while smoking at an inopportune time.

“Looking at it and talking with the person, and I’m not going to put his name out there, but it was kind of a combination of him doing a debris burn, and he was also smoking at the same time, so it was that kind of combination.”

A fierce combination that Ake said, according to fire marshal reports, led to almost 50 acres erupting in and around the golf course, which not only damaged the surrounding grass land, but torched large portions of tree lines all over the area.

“Now, a lot of that which caught fire, was not just the woods that was burning,” Ake said. “There was an old golf cart too and small building structure behind one of the houses. Combined altogether, it was about 50 acres, is what we measured. In fact, Josh Deaver with the fire marshal’s office, he actually had his drone in the air and was measuring it for us, and he said it was actually like 48 to 49 acres, so it was roughly 50 that burned.”

While dryness was the main cause, Ake said it quickly became an outbreak due to bad winds that occurred this weekend.

“The wind at that particular time, when it was paged out, normally in the hours between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. is the worst time for most of our fires to take place,” he said. “One, it’s the hottest part of the day; two, it’s also when the wind picks up quite a bit. And of course, before that storm hit this weekend, the wind was blowing. Then yesterday (Sunday) the wind was also blowing too.”

Those winds led to a fire fight that Ake noted took responders on scene roughly three hours to tackle.

“When we got there and starting to work on putting it out I’d say it took three hours, roughly,” he said. “A lot of that was just trying, because we had a dozer there with us, to find an easier way for it to go in, so it was just a lot of walking was the biggest thing.”

Ake said the fire departments that supported them included, Garland, Roseboro, Taylors Bridge, Salemburg, Harrells, Autryville, Clement, Clinton, Halls, Bethany, Beaver Dam, Hickory Grove and Ammon. Along with those was the fire marshal office and emergency services.

“If I gave one piece of wisdom following this fire, on burning debris, to avoid something like happening again,” Ake stressed. “It’s simple as this: on dry days, just don’t do it. That’s the only thing I can say, is don’t do it, especially before rain comes.”