Published: November 07, 2008 09:46 am      

Power lines blamed for grass fire south of Mineral Wells

By Lacie Morrison
lmorrison@mineralwellsindex.com

PALO PINTO COUNTY – Area firefighters responded to a grassfire Wednesday that was sparked to life by power lines, ironically the same day an alert was made concerning fire danger.

The original call was made at 10:10 a.m. for a grassfire on U.S. Highway 281 south of Mineral Wells, about halfway down Seven Mile Hill on the east side of the roadway.

Firefighters from Cool-Garner, Lone Camp, Millsap, Mineral Wells and Santo responded to the scene. Fire officials estimated the fire burned approximately 50 acres.

“Wind and terrain were problems,” said Mineral Wells Volunteer Fire Department Chief Steve Perdue. “It is contained.”

Lone Camp Volunteer Fire Department Chief Charlie Sims described the terrain as “mostly on the side of the hill, rocks, brush. We ended up taking a dozer and putting a fire line around it.”

He explained the dozer line would prevent the spread of the fire. When they left the scene Wednesday evening, Sims said there was still some burning in the interior.

“Any time you have a fire of that size, you’ll have some spots that will continue to burn,” he said.

Those hot spots might not be too much of a concern as it apparently rained heavily in the area.

“We had some serious cloud-to-ground lightning,” Perdue recalled. “It rained from the top of Seven Mile Hill to the bottom. Literally, from the top to the bottom, in between it was pouring.”

Oncor’s area manager of customer operations Ken Harriss confirmed they “had a line down due to high winds” on Wednesday.

“Our people are still investigating the cause,” he told the Index on Thursday.

In an e-mail sent out by the Texas Forest Service, firefighters were alerted for fire weather conditions on Wednesday with a strong storm system bringing a dry line into the area and winds of 25 mph to 35 mph with occasionally higher gusts. The alert also noted that temperatures combined with the relative humidity could be enough to create a “red flag fire condition.”

“We’re getting there fast,” Sims said of potential fire danger. He said with the lack of recent moisture and the onset of winter, “we’re starting to get critical. The grass is getting brown and will burn. We saw a lot of cedars torching [Wednesday] which means its generally pretty dry.”