Fire Fight at Orchid Hill

June 20th started out like any other day. Doing things in the office, answering emails, called on a new client etc.

About 3pm I got an email from Jose Gomez who had a topographic survey crew out at our property Orchid Hill in Dixon Cove. Orchid Hill is 4.4 acres with a half built house my partners and I purchased last Friday. Our plan is to finish the house, master plan the property and create a small development ont his parcel.

Well all of our plans nearly went up in smoke. The email from Jose said: "Hello Mike…
There is a fire on a hill close to yours….the topo crew says it is almost in your lot….and that they controlled it putting it out with dirt…
And that in a couple of hours it can go up the house if it persists…. We called the fire house to see if they can take care of…
The crew has stopped for now…

JOSE E. GOMEZ"

When I got this email I dropped everything and drove out to the property only stopping to get some rakes and shovels (there is no running water on this site yet so I figured dirt was my only hope).

Just as we drove up we saw the fire truck at the bottom of the hill. The Bomberos (firefighters in espanol) told us they think its going to burn itself out not to worry. I drove up the steep hill to the property anyway and I am glad I did.

I got there and the flames were 2ft high and getting higher and they were 25 ft or so from our house. The wind on the hill was probably 15knts and blowing diagnolly across our property so it looked like it would blow the fire up toward a brushy area on the corner of the house and down toward the house. Not a good option.

I got some local guys from a house behind us and we started raking, chopping and digging a perimeter to prevent the fire from jumping. I sent Cindy back to the fire house and also to the store to buy 5 gallon jugs of water. We dumped the first 40 gallons of water pretty fast and she went and got more after that.

Then my cel phone rang. The coconut telegraph works good on the island and my buddy Steve Hasz had heard about the fire and was on the way with more shovels, rakes etc.. So when he got there and cindy got back with the water we were able to stop the spreading but it was still going good. Eventually Steve went to the fire house to see where the truck was and brought some firemen back with him in his car. They started helping and called and got the truck to actually come about antoher hour later. The truck carried 500 gallons of water and they had just enough hose to get from the truck to our fire. They put the water on the problem and it pretty much put it out. They left a couple of guys on site to watch it for another couple of hours. Right after those guys left it got going again but we had a bunch of water in buckets and were able to put the two little hot spots out again.

Needless to say it was a pretty scary experience. We had signed some papers for insurance the day before but had not given any money and the agent had not actually measured the house etc.. so if we were covered or not is pretty debatable.

So here are some more intersting parts of the day. The local kids said the survey crew started the fire trying to smoke the bees out of a stump so they would not bother them. The survey crew said they did not start the fire.

The local boys (Norman age 10, Lincoln age 12, Sammy age 17 and Mr. Victor 50ish) were a huge help digging, chopping, raking and pouring water. We would have been in big trouble with out there help. These people live in home without running water and have to walk a mile down the hill to a creek to get water and then back to there house. Without asking they brougth the 4 or 5 gallons of brown water they had and dumped it right on the fire. Needless to say I left them with 40 gallons of fresh bottled drinking water in 5 gallon jars at the end of the day.

The kids were over zealous in trying to fight the fire. Running in too close to the smoke and flames with shirts tied over there mouths and either no shoes or flip flops on. Needless to say I told them to stop and not to get hurt and left my shoes for Lincoln. I also left a few limps for there help. I was pretty amazed at the selfless way they offered to help and the way even young kids took great direction and new to throw the dirt and water at the base of the flame and how to brush the dirt and leaves away to make the fire break.

So it was an exciting day but after 5 hours it all turned out OK and we saved the place.