Firefighters have county covered

When a second fire springs up Wednesday well away from Crystal River, authorities are prepared.

By BRIDGET HALL

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 16, 2000

FLORAL CITY -- With the bulk of the county's firefighters off battling the Crystal River blaze Wednesday afternoon, almost no one was left to put out a brush fire that started in the opposite end of the county.

Almost.

One brush truck from Inverness and another from Floral City stayed behind while the others rushed to Crystal River around 1 p.m. Just over two hours later, they were available to snuff out a small fire near East Cod Drive in Floral City.

A third truck from Sumter Tri-County Fire Department lent a hand, helping the county's last two units keep the second fire under control, sheriff's spokeswoman Gail Tierney said.

"They had already thought of that themselves," she said. "They knew they had to leave a few units behind to cover the rest of the county."

The Floral City fire was minor, Tierney said, confined to a small area that is almost surrounded by water. No evacuations were necessary, she said.

And even with a fire raging across the opposite corner of the county, the Floral City fire still received the standard dispatch for a brush fire: three trucks.

"They had a backup plan just in case something like that happened," Tierney said.

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