"When we first saw the smoke cloud appearing on the horizon is appeared like a giant mushroom. It was more than 20 miles away but you could almost see it rolling at that distance. We saw it at 11:55 a.m. and were called to help Granum two hours later.
"The first thing to hit us was the heat and the dust. I don't remember seeing the flames coming just the intense heat and the dust mixed all together. Local people jumped in and the effort they put in was incredible. Any tank or truck they could find was put to use to haul water to our pumpers. Anyone who had a pressure washer and tank put it in the back of a pick-up truck and joined in. While we were putting water on the fire, tractors with double discs were cutting lines and this limited the fire's movement to the north.
"We have ditches along our roadsides and the fuels get pretty dense in them. We mixed some class A foam with water and sprayed some of the ditches. The fire rolled over the top as though it was not treated at all. That really surprised me. The winds never let up and by 10:00 that night all the roadside ditches were completely filled in with wind-blown dust and sand. The fire had completely burned off all the vegetation and the wind was eating up the ground.
"It was scary, really scary. We thought we were trapped in one area and spent some time in the middle of the burn area. We were very fortunate not to have any serious injuries of fire personal."
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