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As about 40 acres of wheat rapidly burned Monday afternoon, Blount County Fire Department was able to save 14 houses and a barn near Gillenwater Court and Calderwood Highway.

As the fire burned the kernels of wheat, there was a “snap, crackle, pop sound like the cereal,” said Blount Couty Fire Chief Doug McClanahan. It sounded like a popcorn popper.

While the cause of the fire is undetermined at this time, area resident Lisa Boling said, “I looked out my kitchen window and saw the middle of the field on fire. I grabbed buckets and told the kids to dial 9-1-1. The fire just went everywhere.”
“This was my greatest fear — that the wheat field would catch fire,” she said.

Her house, which she has rented for almost two years from David “Tex” Hill, was at the forefront of the fight to extinguish the fire. The flames came within about 60 feet of her house and were a threat on two sides.

Before the firefighters arrived, she and people from as far away as Gillenwater Road came to help fight the blaze and water down the seven houses the nearest to the shooting flames.

Driving down the narrow unpaved Gillenwater Court, residents could be seen wetting down roofs with common garden hoses.

At the Boling residence, girls filled buckets and coolers for teenage boys who carried the water to fight the blaze in the field.

The lack of adequate rain has left the county susceptible to fires.

Boling said she was so worried about the dry wheat field, that she stopped burning trash outside two weeks ago and signed up with a garbage disposal service.

She was lucky that most of the residents were home and immediately helped with the fight.

“At least we thought of our dogs (ironically one is called Smoky and two others, Bandit and Tyson). It would have got Bandit and Smoky.”

They were chained in the yard near their doghouses beside the wheat field.

The location of Bandit’s doghouse, which was moved out of the fire’s path, was black from where flames burned wheat and surrounding grass.

Lisa Boling’s husband, Jeff Boling, who is in Canada delivering boats, had his home burn when he was a little boy and she said he also sees fire as a nightmare possibility.

The fire was so intense it could be seen for miles.

“We could see the fire as we drove out of Five Point on Old Knoxville Highway. I saw all that smoke, and that’s when we called for mutual aid,” McClanahan said.

Twice McClanahan requested over the radio more manpower. When he made the second call he said, “It’s spreading into the woods.”

The fire got into the wheat by the trees, fanned in part by wind and burning dead pine trees. A line of trees separated two wheat fields, which totalled close to 100 acres, said J. Wright Ryan, who leases the land. When the fire got back into a field, Ryan went out to help, riding in a his Jeep over the charred ground to try and beat it back with a tree limb.

McClanahan was concerned that the farmer and a friend would get hurt and wanted them out of the field.

Melvin Breeden, who helps Ryan with his farming operation, said, “We were fixing to bring the combine up here yesterday. This is a real good crop. It hurts”

The combine burned Sunday.

At 40 bushels an acre, the value of the lost crop was estimated at over $13,000. It scorched much of the field beside U.S. 129 (Calderwood Highway).

“They saved the barn for us. That’s good. The firemen did a good job,” Breeden said.
Mutual aid agreements fell in place with McClanahan calling for and getting aid from all but one of the Blount fire departments helping. Maryville Fire Department was on standby.

Greenback Volunteer Fire Department brought its pumper truck; Alcoa brought the Blount County brush truck from the shared station off Topside Road; Friendsville Volunteer Fire Department covered the station at Louisville, and Townsend Volunteer Fire Department covered the Walland station.

The Telecommunicators Emergency Response Tennessee worked from the 911 center to keep up with what was happening and what fire personnel and equipment went where.

The Tennessee Division of Forestry brought a plow and was still on scene plowing a fire break around the fire site when the other firefighters left.

There were 30 firefighters on the scene, and the total of emergency personnel involved came to 46.

“We’re blessed,” McClanahan said of the cooperative effort.

The call came in at 1:12 p.m. and firefighters left the scene at 4:15 p.m.
If the weather stays dry, he said the area is at heightened risk of fire.

“It’s extremely dry. We thought we had a chance of rain today. The forecast is no rain for the next five days, unless things change. The temperature is headed toward the high 80s and 90s, and that means the humidity will come down, making it hot and dry. This makes the potential for fires increase tremendously,” McClanahan said.