Union County Fire had a busier than usual day last week, responding with all 13 Fire Stations to four significant emergencies within a span of a few hours on Wednesday, Feb. 26.
The first of these events was an Appalachian Trail rescue, toned out around 12:30 p.m. after first responders received a “Garmin SOS” – an emergency notification from a GPS device made when cell service is diminished or unavailable, which is particularly handy on the AT.
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A North Carolina man was having a medical emergency on the trail behind the Walasi-Yi Interpretive Center in the area of White and Towns counties.
Union County Emergency Management Agency Director and Fire Chief David Dyer dispatched a “Hasty Team” of two firefighters to quickly reach and assess the individual, who was suffering a respiratory event, plus a “Stokes Team” with equipment to carry him out.
Due to the steep terrain, it took the Hasty Team about 45 minutes to get to the man’s location. After evaluating his condition, firefighters realized it was going to take too long to carry him out for medical treatment, so they called in a Georgia State Patrol helicopter for transport.
The Stokes Team hauled the man a short distance away to a better extraction point, and GSP hoisted him out and over to Union General Hospital. As with all significant emergencies handled by the Fire Department, both career and volunteer firefighters responded.
While still dealing with the search and rescue, UCFD received a call at 1:57 p.m. to respond to a car fire, home fire and brush fire that all apparently started after a residential trash fire spread via leaf litter from an adjacent property off Fairview Church Road.
Dyer sent additional resources to extinguish these fires, which proved challenging due to the extent of the spread that was exacerbated by the recent transition to annually recurring dangerous fire weather, that is, dry and windy conditions.
Fortunately, the home was vacant, so no one was hurt in the blaze, but the structure and car were total losses.
On the scene, Fire Capt. Justin Blanchard said two engines and two tankers responded, as well as employees of the Georgia Forestry Commission to help knock down the roughly quarter-acre, debris-filled brush fire behind the home. The agencies wrapped up their work close to 5 p.m.
People are not legally allowed to burn trash, largely for environmental reasons, and the Georgia Forestry Commission is investigating the cause of the fire, which may result in a citation. If so, the responsible party might have to repay expenses associated with GFC’s response.
“For example, if we send two people in two trucks, they get charged for the time for those two people, and the mileage and the hours for that equipment,” Chief Ranger Blake Melton said of the consequences of GFC having to put out fires linked to burning trash.
Melton said the North Georgia Mountains have entered fire season, typified by dry conditions – more frequent occasions of less than 20% humidity – combined with winds of 20 mph or greater, and he asked that people be mindful of fire danger.
Residents may burn hand-piled natural vegetation and yard debris – leaves and limbs – without a permit, but they must watch fire conditions, which can be learned by calling Georgia Forestry anytime, day or night, at 706-781-2398. Folks can also visit gatrees.org to check daily weather.
However, due to smoke regulations, Melton said burn permits are required for machine-stacked vegetation piles and acreage burning, and people may call Georgia Forestry for more information.
“If we deem conditions are unsafe, we automatically cut permits off; we haven’t been issuing permits since (Feb. 26),” Melton said Friday, noting that GFC was bracing for ongoing dangerous fire conditions in the coming days.
About 10 minutes after UCFD arrived at the fires off Fairview Church Road, E-911 Dispatchers tasked the department with responding to a stove fire off Blue Ridge Highway that did not go out when hit with a fire extinguisher.
Blairsville Police Chief Michael “Bear” Baxter heard the call and knew UCFD had its hands full, so he drove immediately to the home, cut electricity to the stove and helped snuff out the blaze there to save the Fire Department from a prolonged diversion in a time of stretched resources.
And if that wasn’t enough to deal with, the Fire Department received a call about another, larger brush fire on Mull Valley Road in the north end of the county near Loving Road. This fourth emergency was toned out around 2:19 p.m., less than two hours after the trail rescue call.
Because so many of its ranks were busy with other emergencies, UCFD requested mutual aid from Fannin County Fire and Georgia Forestry. They joined Union firefighters in putting out the roughly 1.6-acre brush fire between two houses in treacherous terrain, finishing about 5:30 p.m.
GFC is still investigating the Mull Valley fire but said the preliminary results of the investigation pointed to the cause being an individual working with power saws that sparked into the woods.
Ranger Melton said some crossties holding a retaining wall back marked the extent of the damage from this fire, and after fighting back-to-back brush fires with local departments, he expressed gratitude for the tremendous multi-agency cooperation that exists in Union County.
“We’ve got a great relationship with our local fire departments, and also with U.S. Forest Service,” Melton said. “There’s not enough of any of us, really, to try to get the jobs done that we need to do on our own.
“So, if we don’t work together, we’re not going to accomplish the goals that we’ve set forth in trying to keep the community safe. It’s a relationship that, as long as I’m here as chief ranger, we’re going to continue.”
Dyer said he, too, was grateful for his firefighters and all the agencies that assisted them in responding to the above-average number of emergencies from Feb. 26.
“Everybody did a great job,” Chief Dyer said. “It was very hectic for a little while, but that’s the nature of first response. I hope we’re not that busy too many times, but we’re always going to respond.
“It’s a rare thing to have two structure fires, two brush fires and a search & rescue going on all in the span of about three to four hours. That just shows the diversity of Fire & EMA about how many types of incidents that you may be responding to.
“That’s one of the things I love about the emergency services – you don’t know what you’re going to do next. It sure kept us all busy for a while.”
