Down at the end of John Starr Road, where the gravel road ends and the pine trees begin, Kristi Jones stood on her front porch Friday morning and gazed out over 80 acres of scorched earth.
Jones held firmly onto the hand of her daughter, 3-year-old Mattie Grace, and peered across blackened fields, charred pine trees and piles of logs and debris. The air reeked of burning timber.
“We just hope and pray the smoke goes away,” Jones said, looking at a pile of smoking logs a few yards from her home. Smoke sprang up from a handful of other locations in the distant pasture.
Despite the smoke, damage from the Thursday wildfire could have been a lot worse for the Jones family. When fire tore through the pasture and pine trees on the Jones property in southwest Oktibbeha County, the family”s home was untouched, although fire did reach the edge of the yard.
The family wasn”t home when the fire broke out about 11:45 a.m. When Kristi and her husband, George, returned home from work Thursday afternoon, they discovered firefighters from Central Oktibbeha, Sturgis and Oktoc volunteer fire departments and the Mississippi Forestry Commission working hard to keep flames away from their home and the home of a nearby neighbor. No other homes were in the vicinity.
Central Oktibbeha County Volunteer Fire Department Chief Bennett George on Friday said when firefighters arrived at the scene, 40 acres already were burning and crews immediately began “attacking” the pasture fire to keep it away from the two nearby homes. Firefighters and the Forestry Commission spent about five hours plowing a fire line around the blaze, containing it and putting out hot spots, George said. No homes or structures were damaged.
Looking back on the experience Friday, Kristi Jones admitted the fire was nerve-wracking, but commended the volunteer fire departments and the Forestry Commission for their work.
“It was scary, but the fire department had it under control,” she said.
Jones did not have a monetary estimate for damages caused by the fire.
“We”re not concerned about that,” she said. “We”re just glad the house is OK.”
Investigators on Friday were still trying to determine what caused the blaze.
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