Marshall McClung
After 50 years of fighting brush fires, certain ones will still cross my mind.
Such is the case with a fire at The Master’s Mission on Little Snowbird over 37 years ago. I did some fact checking with Jim Teasdale, Harold Phillips, and others to jog my memory on certain facts.
When I stepped out of the house that morning in the last week of April 1987, I didn’t need to check any weather forecasts to know that we were in for another high fire danger day.
Around 10 a.m., Toby Key – the N.C Forest Service lookout in the Joanna Bald fire tower – called to report large smoke in the Little Snowbird area, which appeared to be near The Master’s Mission. As it turned out, another land owner had been burning brush and the fire had escaped onto the property.
Long before I got to the fire, I could see a large column of smoke with a mushroom cloud formed at the top. I immediately called the Cheoah Ranger Station to send all our firefighters, and to request an air tanker and a helicopter.
In the meantime, Harold Phillips with the N.C. Forest Service was doing much the same thing – as he was bringing his crew, and had ordered a helicopter and a dozer.
At the mission, Phillips joined Teasdale, Larry Sawyer, Vernon Waldroup and others who had started building a fire line when the air tanker dropped a load of retardant on the head of the fire, slowing it down and soaking the crew in the meantime.
Two helicopters arrived – one from the U.S. Forest Service and one from the N.C. Forest Service – with more firefighters. The mission employees had an excellent water source set up, as they and a fire truck could quickly load the helicopters buckets with water to drop on the fire. Other fire trucks helped provide structure protection.
The fire was burning so hot that flames were burning out the tops of large hardwood trees – what we call a “crown fire.” The fire spotted across Mission Road, Little Snowbird Creek and Little Snowbird Road, and started another fire. I took my pumper truck and a few firefighters, and was barely able to stop it before it took off up a steep mountainside.
A dozer cut a control line down one side of the fire while a fire crew – consisting of mission employees, federal and state firefighters – built a line down the other side.
The fire was finally brought under control around 10 p.m., after burning 80 acres and leaving some tired firefighters. If the fire had made it much further up the mountain, it would likely have burned most of the structures that make up the mission.
The mission staff fed us a nice meal, and thanked us for our efforts in stopping the fire and saving the buildings.
Marshall McClung is the historical columnist for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, mcclungs@email.com.