Fire consumes ponds; marsh now scorched

By MATTHEW WAITE

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 6, 2000

HUDSON -- When the last word is written on the great drought of 2000, Meadow Oaks residents will recall Monday, when the ponds and marsh fed by Buckhorn Creek burned for the better part of the day.

A wetland any other time of the year, the dried-up creekbed was set ablaze in three places by arsonists just before 4 a.m. Monday, and Pasco County Fire Rescue officials said it would continue to burn into today.

By 7 p.m., Florida Division of Forestry firefighters had finally stopped the slowly eastward creeping blaze, using five bulldozers, two water-dropping helicopters and a large airplane dropping fire retardant and water.

A steady eastward wind was both friend and foe Monday, blowing the flames away from houses, but pushing it stubbornly across fire lines.

Two Pasco County firefighters were taken to area hospitals for heat exhaustion. District Chief Doug Drape said the two transported were among the first called to help contain the fire at 9 a.m.

"They just wanted to be here," he said. "They want to do the job. Sometimes they go longer than their bodies will let them."

The huge cloud of smoke that billowed up all day pushed a smokey-smelling haze as far as Dade City, more than 30 miles east.

In all, more than 250 acres of dry cypress marsh was scorched while firefighters battled to keep it inside fire lines dug by bulldozers. Two other small brush fires, one on East Road near the Hernando County line and one on Morris Bridge Road, flared up throughout the day.

The flames on Sugar Creek Boulevard got within 10 feet of the houses that line the street, stopped short by Pasco firefighters and trenches dug by the Florida Department of Forestry. But that was more than enough to unnerve some neighbors.

Rhonda Larsen came home after an hour of work to guard her house. Using a garden hose, she sprayed off her roof, hoping to ward off the fire she could hear crackling 50 yards from her home.

"What can you do?" she asked. "Pray that the wind blows in the right direction."

And blow it did.

The strategy firefighters used was simple: dig a trench around the fire and let it burn itself out. For the most part, it worked.

However, with the wind steadily blowing east at 10 to 12 mph, the blaze kept jumping the fire lines on the east side. But the farther east it went, the farther it was from homes.

The fire came the closest to Fred Feliciano's Sugar Creek home. The fire line was a scant 10 feet from his pool, and the smoke chased him from his back yard on several occasions.

But smoke was all the damage he got. Feliciano said there was a faint smoke smell in the house, but since he still had a house, he put it in perspective.

"We'll live with that," he said.

Protecting Feliciano's home was the crew from Engine 21. Lt. Jeff O'Nan said they were called to the fire at 9 a.m. to protect houses. At 7 p.m., his crew was sitting down to a dinner of pizza and Gatorade.

To a man, each of them had consumed more than 2 gallons of water while fighting the fire in 90 degree heat.

"You don't really realize how dehydrated you are until you are past that point," O'Nan said.

Some of their first refreshments of the day came from one of the houses they were protecting.

While her neighbors put their lawn sprinklers on their roofs and hosed down the back sides of their houses, Peggy D'Orio did the neighborly thing and put out refreshments for the firefighters in her back yard. Water, soda, pretzels were offered, and more than a few firefighters took advantage.

When she first saw the fire, D'Orio said she was nervous. But a firefighter told her the fire would stay within the fire lines, and she had nothing to worry about.

Standing in her kitchen, watching a small blaze framed nicely by a back window, D'Orio said she was grateful they were there.

"You really don't count on them until something happens," she said. "They're breaking their necks to help out people here; we ought to help them."

And like any good host, she fretted about what she had to give.

"I wish I had more," D'Orio said. "I wish I had more lunch meat, but I didn't know I was going to have this today."

-- Staff writer Matthew Waite can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6247 or (800) 333-7505, ext. 6247. His e-mail address is waite@sptimes.com.

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