SOCIAL CIRCLE, Ga. — Metro firefighters spent a sleepless weekend fighting the wildfire in Brantley County. They were there to save the many homes as the fire grew.
Three firefighters were there one day last week, but over this weekend, they returned, taking a truck on the four-hour drive from metro Atlanta to Brantley County on Saturday, and they worked for 36 hours straight.
“It was a long weekend,” Social Circle Fire Chief Kenneth Zaydel said.
He told Channel 2’s Candace McCowan that he and two other members of the department jumped into action over the weekend.
“Just ride a road that is five miles long and see houses on both sides of the road for just miles. They were totally destroyed,” Zaydel said.
Their job: structure protection.
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“We would take rakes, and we would make lines between the wood line, and digging the grass up so it wouldn’t burn. Then we would wet everything down ... a lot of putting water on houses,” Social Circle Deputy Fire Chief Lester Pittman said.
Normally, when responding to fires, firefighters would take a fire engine. But going to South Georgia, they had to prepare for the sandy terrain and took a brush truck that wouldn’t sink down into the sand.
“So when you’re getting down there on those dirt roads, you can get behind houses, you can get places where you can’t get a fire truck,” Zaydel said.
Videos show planes taking water from lakes to put on the flames. And they say there were fire crews from at least 50 departments working alongside them, in a fight that had its ups and downs.
“We had some success, we had some failures. We saw some houses burn, but also it feels good to know you did save some houses,” Pittman said.
They also worked to make sure they were able to get out, positioning their truck to exit if needed in a moment’s notice.
For the most part, people have evacuated their homes. But there were some left behind who had to help out of treacherous situations.
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