Stanley Fire Update

Blogger’s Comment (added November 2009): In November, the Hawksbill Cabin blog site was visited by Terry Pettit. He read some back posts and came across these two posts on the 2008 brush fire near Stanley. Chief Pettit was concerned that my posts may not have clearly emphasized the volunteer nature of the Stanley Volunteer Fire Department, the value of its contributions, and how it is organized to respond to these events. He offered some additional insight on the process and organization – clarifications I am glad to receive. I have included Chief Pettit’s comments in full at the end of the original posts – and I invite readers to be sure and read them as well. JT

Over the weekend, as we made our stops around town and picked up the local paper, we learned that the fire last week actually involved 1,100 acres. We were surprised that you could see the burned forest land from the Food Lion (or as I like to call it, the Food Line)...here is a typcially blurry phone cam shot.

A couple of things we learned - one, the fire took 30 hours to fight and get under control. Although it rained this week out there, there was a period of low humidity that was said to have helped the fire spread. Secondly, the paper corrected the story and estimated that the fire fighting fee would be around $10K as opposed to that higher figure.

I guess one reason for the fines is that the town's fire fighter force is all volunteers, and this is a kind of assessment to run the department (Blogger's note - be sure to read the comment from Chief Pettit below about the Stanley Volunteer Fire Department).

Chief Pettit's Comments: Jim, I was looking at your website and noticed a correction that needs to be made reference to the brush fire in 2008 outside Stanley. The Stanley Volunteer Fire Department is an all volunteer department and receives no payments from any call we respond too. Donations are accepted. The Virginia Forestry Department by law has the right and will charge you for the cost of bringing a wild land fire under control and extinguishing it. The money goes to the State of Virginia. During the 30 hours the Stanley fire department was on the scene of the Lucas Hollow fire the 25 members that responded all as always donated their time and the cost of fuel and supplies came out of our budget. The department’s budget is $125,000.00 per year and the county of page supplies $45,000.00 of that total, we have to raise the rest through donations, meals, events, etc. I hope that the people that read your blog understand that we did not receive any money and get the wrong idea that we do on calls. Terry A. Pettit, Stanley Fire Chief