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Church Rolls up Sleeves to Feed Hundreds of Firefighters Battling West Mims Fire

They set up daily near houses along the sides of the two-lane paved roads and down one-path lanes, find some shade with a view of the smoke and await the next call on their radios to move.

(TNS) - Firefighters, from rural volunteers to paid city and county departments, have converged in St. George, Moniac and Fargo to protect homes, horse barns and other structures threatened by the increasingly menacing West Mims Fire in Florida and Georgia.
 
They set up daily near houses along the sides of the two-lane paved roads and down one-path lanes, find some shade with a view of the smoke and await the next call on their radios to move.

They had plenty to see Monday as the fire jumped Georgia 94 in several spots and tore south putting up columns of smoke from two heads. By the time it was over, the fire had burned about 7,000 acres in a 5½ mile “bulge,” said the Southern Area Red team managing the fire. That would bring the total number of acres scorched to about 140,000 since lightning started the fire April 6 west of St. George.

Firefighters from Montgomery County and from the Harris Neck community in McIntosh County were along Georgia 121 south of St. George on Monday. Donnie Daniels, director of Montgomery County Emergency Management, watched air tankers drop below the tree line to spread loads of retardant on the fire as its smoke covered more than a quarter of the sky.

“That thing’s going to be a booger,” he said.

It already was for the tractor plow crews on the ground trying to stop it from moving deeper south into the Georgia Bend, tall U formed by the St. Marys River as it dips into what would otherwise be North Florida.

But firefighters have to eat, too, and the St. George Church of God provided food as it has done in the past.

Tift County Fire Chief Joey Fowler settled at a table in the church gym with three firefighters.

“We got a request from the Georgia Mutual Aid Group,” made up of departments across the state, he said.

Tift County came with two trucks, two 3,000-gallon tankers and enough firefighters for a night crew and a day crew, both paid and volunteers, Fowler said.

They chowed down on lasagna, green beans, bead and whatever they wanted to drink.

“They take good care of us,” Fowler said of the church.

Brunswick had come 30 hours earlier with three firefighters, “and we’ve got more coming,” Capt. Richard Bue said walking to a table with a plate and drink.

Volunteers from the Church of God, other churches and people who were “just neighbors” were in the gym filling plates and cups and digging in ice chest for firefighters’ favorite flavors of sports drink.

Sunny Albritton, the daughter-in-law of Grady Albritton, the church pastor, said the effort to provide meals started Sunday night.

“When we found out about the 80 something firefighters that didn’t get fed,” she said of the timing.

The church put out a request on Facebook for help, and, St. George being a friendly community, the call also spread by word-of-mouth.

By Monday tables sagged with crackers, energy drinks, water, granola bars and other food with more coming in the door frequently.

Tuesday afternoon four pallets of water arrived and the gym was running out of room. The church began directing away for storage.

“There was nothing here yesterday,” Sunny Albritton said Monday night. “We’ve been really blessed.”

The Rev. Albritton said he got a call asking for help. “They knew I had the experience doing it,” he said. “They knew I could put it together in a hurry.”

It was, after all, the church’s third big fire, and they had fed 600 meals a day for the first one, he said. The church rose to the task quickly, he said.

“We fixed 81 sandwiches Sunday night, served 15 pizzas and 15 plates of chicken Alfredo,” he said. The volunteers also made 70 lunches, he said.

About midway through the Monday night meal, the gym went dark along with the rest of the town. West Mims had burned a power pole triggering a shutdown of power to Moniac and St. George and a lot of surrounding neighborhoods. About six hours later, the power was restored.

Albritton began calling around for a generator as volunteers continued serving under the gym’s battery-powered emergency lights.

They also filled clam shell take-out boxes that went out by the dozens for firefighters on the line who were still trying to stop the fire or who couldn’t leave their posts.

A generator, Albritton said, would be enough to power the lights, “but I don’t know if we can cook.”

With more firefighters on the way and no end in sight for the fire, the church likely has a lot of cooking left on its plate.

But they didn’t have to cook Tuesday night. Victory Baptist from Folkston provided the evening meal.

Terry Dickson: (912) 264-0405

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