Fire crews battle blazes in two Valley View locations

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Volunteer fire fighters from Lindsay spray the raging flames to control a grass fire which threatened Valley View Thursday. Additional units from Gainesville, Valley View, Era, Sanger, Moss Lake and North Shore also responded. Staff photo by Jim Perry
Valley View volunteer fire fighters successfully stopped the advancing blaze before it reached nearby structures. Staff photo by Jim Perry

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August 5, 2012

Fire crews battle blazes in two Valley View locations

By GREG RUSSELL, Register Staff Writer Gainesville Daily Register The Daily Register Sun Aug 05, 2012, 11:30 AM CDT

Valley View — Sparks were the apparent cause of two separate grass fires in Valley View on Thursday, officials said.

Cooke County Fire Marshal Ray Fletcher proposed Friday that the fires — one south of FM 922 and one north, and both east of Valley View — began with sparks from nearby railroad tracks and from an overhead power line scuffed by wildlife.

“There’s probably no other reason for there to have been a fire,” he said.

No injuries were reported. Both fires consumed roughly 50 acres of land, and Fletcher said the blaze north of FM 922 kept teams returning to it through Friday morning.

“They were out there off and on,” he said.

Both fires commanded a broad range of extinguishers. Members of the Valley View, North Shore, Era, Sanger, Lindsay and Moss Lake volunteer fire departments worked the scenes, along with the Gainesville Fire Department and employees from Cooke County’s Precinct 2.

Lindsay Fire Chief Adam Arendt said he agreed that sparks were the likely cause of both fires, adding that he and department members helped dowse the fire south of FM 922 within two hours, and were headed back to their station when they got a call about the second fire.

It took longer to finally beat, he said, since the fire would start itself at random through the night.

“There was so much debris and wood and hay bales that you’d get it knocked out but it would rekindle and come back,” he said. “After you get the fire knocked down, you get to where you can suppress it. But then there will be something like a wooden pole burning, and it won’t even be smoking. The wind will change, and ember it back up, and it takes off.”

Arendt also added that such situations call for a special Cooke County task force. The organization, he said, would designate a group of trucks among local fire departments and tend to large fires without pulling resources from every department at once.

“It really needs to happen,” he said.