Fire Chief Paul Jenkins asked that we express his thanks to all the fire departments that helped with Thursday's grass fire. Those departments are Cactus, Channing, Fritch, Hartley, Stinnett, Sunray and Texas Parks Service. "This is another reason to live in the Texas Panhandle ", says Chief Jenkins, "because everyone is there to help in a situation like this."
The City of Dumas has two grass trucks called "Boosters" that are used in all grass fires. (One is seen above) The fire department also used a third one that is used mainly in the city for car wrecks and such. These trucks has the ability to pump and roll using an auxiliary engine to pump water as they go. With all the fire departments combined they had 24 trucks at the scene of the fire along with a tanker and a command vehicle. Seven road graders belonging to the different counties and state helped put out the fire also. Sunray, Fritch and Dumas each provided water tankers to help squelch the grass fire as it covered 35,000 acres according to Sunray's Fire Chief. Rex Rode who is also a pilot as well as Sunray's Fire Chief flew over the scorched acres on Friday, February 18, 2011 to measure how many acres were burned.
According to Dumas Fire Chief Jenkins the station received the fire call at 2:14 p.m. and was at the scene of the fire by 2:23 p.m. The fire was contained around 9:00 p.m. but the last truck and firefighter did not leave till around 3:00 a.m. on Friday morning. Chief Jenkins also said due to the teamwork of all the fire department and firefighters not one structure was lost.
The Dumas HPO would also like to give a shout out to the hard work done by all the fire departments and firefighters and are glad that no one was hurt in this fire. Congratulations on a job well done!
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| Photo taken at 3:16 p.m. by Stephanie Tucker on her IPhone |
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